Today we are submerged in a society where a vast list of social standards and values are based on a hundred year old, sometimes even earlier, system, the roots of which were founded on the personal beliefs of top leaders in a social hierarchy.
I have developed bodies of work around the Minimalist ideas introduced in the late '60s and into the '70s. I create works that use undeniably man-made, geometric shapes and forms that deny the idea of aesthetic imagery. I am not interested in deceiving the audience to believe that what they are witnessing is something other than the true form in which the content is presented.
My pieces, as simple as they may be, carry a great weight of symbolism and iconography, from history to present day society. This develops a wide spectrum of theories and questions about who we are in the eyes of social standards and why we have come to these beliefs. I hope to leave the viewer questioning conformity and their beliefs. Hopefully, through this questioning, new doors will be opened to mindfulness by acknowledging differences and ignorance.
My work is based around personal experience and my daily life. I gather information from my surroundings so that I can arrange this data into a systematic thought process, which I then transfer into a visual representation. The thought process that I display is a build up of emotion and anxieties within me, by way of witnessing my daily life and the lives of others. I witness the environment and situations provided, I witness honest hardworking people who have become the statistics of foreclosure, forcing families into temporary homes and possibly ending up on the streets with uncertainties of future survival. And I witness the high paid business executive basking in the sun in a Mercedes-Benz convertible, worrying about nothing but developing an uneven tan-line produced by his white-collar shirt.
I witness the power of people helping others with accomplishments that evolve into a change for the better with their children, community, and ultimately, our society. I also witness the abuse of power provided by authority, military, and law enforcement.
I witness the preaching of an educated scholar on the importance of furthering ourselves within society, to the fast spoken words of hatred used to attack another through the voice of ignorance.
I witness open-mindedness, acceptance, and understanding, and I witness separation, clustering, and religion.
Watching as a spectator, my thought process boils down to one question: Why? Hopefully if one will ask themselves this question, they may start to understand the reasoning and the emotions involved within social standards and social conformity, which shape individuals, families, communities, society, and the world, into “the way we do things.”
