Villa Amphitrite

Concept: I was presented with the opportunity in February to create a small collection of paintings for a small gallery space in San Niccolo Firenze the challenge for me was to create a body of small works that seemed more expansive. I had to conceptualize a different space within and apart from the gallery. 

I often make references to myth and our collective history. An endless resource of inspiration, the way humans have created beauty and refined nature to capture moments leaves me breathless. One of my favorite museums in Italy is the Napoli museum of archeology. It is where most frescoes from Pompeii where taken and deposited. Removed from their natural spaces they are de-contextualized. The resulting curation is room after room of homeless wall fragments. 

What was most striking though was how those pieces of other peoples lives from centuries ago could create a whole mental image of the way the space had been. They us to a time and place archaic and familiar. Within them we see a reflection of our social journey, its consistencies and anomalies. From those inchoate understanding new concepts of spacial dynamics presented themselves. The attraction of new media is its kinetic nature. Always moving, always young and new. The attraction of painting, architecture and design is that they are in essence static. They decompose, but aside from that they are consistent. A well made painting much like a person will reveal itself slowly. Its intricacies will either attract us more to it, or revolt us. Non nomadic architecture for time eternal has helped us recognize our place on the earth and has until very recently been created to be a reflection of its materials and the pride of the people who made it.

Beginning with an idea of formulated non space and imaginary architecture I began to build a group of images utilizing a series of prints I did last year based on sea life. Named the Villa Amphitrite series they where an exploration into organic nautical patterns. I then glued them to "wall fragments" and began to build decorative elements that could be digested singularly or as a whole.

The Fragments had to be both small and intimate as to enmesh well with the show space and also expansive in their concepts so as not to seem anorexic when being displayed. I achieved this in the installation by placing four groupings of paintings on the wall. The two central groupings I then bridged with the addition of a silk screened piece of fabric and sculptural elements. The addition of these two elements unified the two central groupings to create a total of three.

The central mass then weighted the show with a mixed media piece that the viewer can decipher. Printed, painted, sculpted and lit the combination of decorative artistic elements enables a recollective cataloguing of elements. The are recognizable in comparison to other things we have seen but strange and otherworldly in the same moment.

       

I was fortunate to see a Mimmo Rotella retrospective in Nice. His irreverence to imagery was striking, liberating and inspiring. I took away from it the idea of not holding images so sacred. By allowing printed images to be de-completed at random a new visual vocabulary develops. Though I was not to keen on his use of paint, his use of already printed material was masterly. In this series I started each painting with printed material. In a personal battle I had to remind myself to get over myself. When the source of the work is your own hand it becomes increasingly difficult. I akin it to disciplining a child to be a reflection of your parenting. I love my babies, I think they are going to do great things in the world. I am so honored to have midwifed them into existence.

Asspirations (versione Italiano)

Know Your Limits.

Ho iniziato questa nuova avventura un anno fa dopo aver incontrato un gallerista, l’incontro organizzato da un attore TV italiano. Lei si dimostrò molto ricettiva della mia opera, metà della mia opera … Fu rapita da quei quadri che trasudavano vita, una bellezza arcaica che è organica e fluida. Questa è l’opera che io considero preghiera. Arriva attraverso di me, ma non è mia ed è solo la metà delle mie esplorazioni. La metà della mia opera con cui non comunicava  era quella in cui l’immagine giocava un ruolo primario. Alla fine mi disse che si sarebbe incontrata con me per discutere come gestire il mio lavoro, ma che se lo avesse fatto io non avrei dovuto e non avrei potuto fare alcuna opera in cui la grafica non fosse proprio la mi. Hmmm

Wall in Piazza Puccini Firenze Italia

 Quando ho iniziato a studiare seriamente l’incisione, la mia ossessione era l’idea di riproduzioni automatiche. La serigrafia divenne per me il riflesso di ciò. Selezionavo le strade per immagini, poi replicavo le immagini o le incollavo direttamente sulla tela. Tagliando ed incollando, tentavo di riprodurre l’effetto delle superfici che mi circondano quotidianamente.

Il bello di essere un artista è che puoi portare avanti i tuoi pensieri e controllandoli appena, evocare nello spettatore intuizioni che sono sia personali sia plurali. Quando vedo una pubblicità mi chiedo sempre che cosa mi stia dicendo. Quando vedo strati di messaggi assieme, le conclusioni diventano diverse, disordinate e confuse, diventano statica visiva.

Judgement Day

L’anno scorso ho creato una serie chiamata “Asspirations” ispirata a Piazza Puccini a Firenze. Lo spazio è dominato da una enorme fabbrica di sigarette fascista, pannelli cadenti appesantiti dal confronto ne fiancheggiano i lati. Prostitute trans dai grandi seni e dalle labbra turgide la decorano. Piazza Puccini è il miglior esempio di piano urbanistico contemporaneo a Firenze. La sua capacità come spazio artistico non pretenzioso che si sviluppa organicamente è divino. E’ il riflesso moderno di una casa degli specchi degli antichi muri affrescati delle numerose chiese di Firenze. La piazza è riccamente stratificata, i suoi messaggi in cambio divengono dissociati e surreali.

Highness

Tutta l’atmosfera è a pensarci provocante. Dico alle ragazze “buon lavoro” mentre passo e loro sorridono salutando concitatamente con la mano, vedendo un viso familiare. E’ molto dolce e molto ambizioso. Tutti questi elementi visivi consentono la creazione del momento, della sensazione e del luogo.  

Hollywood Divorce

“Asspirations” era la creazione di una superficie stratificata di immagini che si riferivano ad un’idea. Strappare e tagliare parti di informazioni e poi creare asserzioni più complesse.

Questa esperienza mi ha insegnato che tutte queste esplorazioni personali sono valide e necessarie. Sono parte del mio viaggio visuale attraverso questo mondo. La mia prerogativa ed il mio imperativo artistico di rappresentare ciò che sento sono il miglior gergo possibile per comunicare un concetto. Se scelgo di usare la mia mano o di rielaborare il lavoro di altri, il risultato finale non si svaluta. Ho comunque risposto alle sue richieste ed ho iniziato a mescolare la mia voce distinta con la pluralità che si trova nei mezzi di riproduzione automatica.  

Visual Mythologies: Asspiratons

Know Your Limits.

I began this new adventure one year ago after meeting with a gallerist organized by an Italian television actor. She was very receptive to my work, half of my work.  She was entranced by those Paintings that dripped with life, an archaic beauty that is organic and flowing. This is the work that I consider prayer. It comes through me but is not of me, and is only half of my explorations.  The half of my work she did not respond to was that which found imagery played a major role. She finally told me she would meet with me to discuss handling my work but if she did I should not and could not do any work where the penmanship was not my own. Hmmm

Wall in Piazza Puccini Firenze Italia

When I began seriously studying printmaking my obsession was with ideas of automatic reproduction. Silk screening became a reflection of that for me. I would cull the streets for imagery then reprint that imagery or glue it directly to the canvass. Cutting and pasting I attempted to reproduce the effect of the surfaces that surround me daily.

One beauty of being an artist is that you can put your thoughts forward and by controlling them slightly, arouse within the viewer insights that are both personal and plural. When I see an advertisement I always ask myself what it is saying to me. When I see layers of messages together conclusions become different, muddled, and confusing, it becomes visual static.

Judgement Day

Last year I created a series called "Asspirations" inspired by Piazza Puccini in Firenze. The space is dominated by a huge fascist cigarette factory cascading billboards heavy with conversation flanking its sides. Huge breasted, puffy lipped trannie prostitutes decorate it. Piazza Puccini is the best example of contemporary urban planning in Florence. Its capacity as an unpretencious artistic space that develoups organically is devine. It is a modern funhouse reflection of the ancient religious wall frescos in Florences numerous churches. The Piazza is richly layered, its messages in turn become dissjointed and surreal.

Highness

 The whole atmosphere is thought provoking, I tell the girls "buon lavoro" when I pass, they smile waving excitedly to see a familiar face. It is very sweet and  very ambitious. All these visual elements allow for the creation of  moment, feeling, and that place.

Hollywood Divorce

 "Asspirations" was about creating a surface layered with imagery that related to one idea. Tearing and cutting  parts of information away then creates more complex statements.
This experience has taught me all these personal explorations are valid and necessary. They part of my visual journey through this world. It is my artistic prerogative and imperative to draw upon what I feel is the best possible vernacular to convey a statement. If I choose to use my own hand or reprocess the work of others it does not devalue the end result. I did however respond to her demands and began to enmesh my distinct voice with plurality that is found in automatic reproductive media.

Veil

This print began in the form of a painting stuffed in the back of a storage room. Rather than dig it out I decided to make a repeat pattern design based on it. The concept of a veil is that there are certain places and formations on earth that open into other dimensions. They change your perception in such a way that when you return to our dimension you are changed. When I was a child there was a special place in the woods near my house. I would play there and loose my days in a mass of uncounted hours, I understand now that I was experiencing a veil. This is a three quarter brick drop repeat, the connecting pieces where reformulated three times to adjust the math in the printing. If the math is off slightly it may not show up in the beginning of the printing but as the image needs to be repeated, the larger it becomes the more it distorts.

These first four images capture my working process of formulating this repeat, The design that I am working on turned out to be totally wrong. The math was off and it didn't show its weakness until I had printed a meter, after words it began to print totally off, there was no amount of adjustment that could save it not to mention when I started to add colors.

I had to redraw the whole piece, central medallion and joining pieces as one print so there would be lesser chance of distortion. After that I could start adding overlapping color prints with a great deal of accuracy.

After a few trial printings I gain a comfort with my screens and their printing order. I make the first print with 1 dark piece, the base, then i build on that trellis as a way to repeat it, on the first test all other printings aside from the original are printed in light grey or green. This allows me to see what the basic element looks like.

I print several tests before I print my style sheet that shows the design as the finished product.

This is a step by step description of the printing of a sample, A three quarter brick drop a-symmetric print is a pain in the ass, nerve wracking, but the results make it totally worth it.

I like to use silver spoons for my ink cause its classy.

This little guy is Aection who was torn to death by his own hounds after Diana turned him into a stag for looking on her in a private moment. The hunter becomes the hunted.

This project has led me into my next grouping, I am increasingly interested in sacred geometry and symbolism and the way they transport us by changing our perception of everyday life. 

                                   all printing was done at art studio fuji, via guelfa 85 firenze