* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
In our current culture, commercial interests have dominated the visual landscape with signs and symbols for the purpose of promoting their products and affecting our choices of consumption. We navigate through this language of advertising every day and it has become very much a part of our personal and cultural consciousness. Trademarks for such companies as Coca Cola and Ford are in some ways more representative of American culture than any flag. As consumers our personal identities are shaped by the products that we purchase, thus such icons have also become representative of who we are as individuals. In some ways I am drawn to this outburst of visual energy, albeit fueled by greed. I see stock cars and soccer jerseys as amazing works of art. I see the graphic aesthetic as indicative of our time and place in history. On the other hand I am wary of the culture of unchecked consumption and loss of individuality it has spawned. In my work I am attempting to utilize these symbols of commerce to communicate my own personal thoughts and concerns. In this regard I would probably have more in common with the mystics and shamans of the world, than the board of any corporation. I guess I believe there is something more to life than just profits or consumption; there are relationships with others, the mysteries of our spiritual tendencies, the pleasures and pains of deep human emotion to name some others. Ultimately my work is not meant as a total slight to commercialism, but simply to add some other thoughts to the equation that to me are more lasting than what can be quickly consumed.
