Fiends, Demons and Devils
Borrowing from pantheistic cultures and the visual and artistic representative traditions from those cultures, my intent is to represent that which is outside our understanding and control and therefore “scary” within our culture. The “demons” of our society. The attempt is to put a face on the very challenging and incredibly complex issues of our times. If green-house-gases were a deity what would it look like? What does Agri-business, with it multitude of complex problems, hi-fructose sugar to bio-diesel ethanol to hog farm waste pools, look like? How does our society relate to these complicated issues?
These pieces are based on the long-standing artistic tradition in both eastern and western cultures, using visual art as a means to make visible the mysterious and the invisible. The figures float in a darkened sky. They are serious, comical, and scary. They surround and weigh-down on two female figures (a detail from Giuseppe Cesari’s famous painting of the Roman myth, Diana and Actaeon). They consist of heavy metals, lead and arsenic, mercury vapors, green-house-gases, agri-business, coal and oil. Some are ancient problems, lead and mercury, some are new problems, green-house-gasses, agri-business, all are unsolved difficulties faced by our society.
My intent with this piece is to make visible the complicated and abstract issues of our time. By personifying these complex issues as “demons” I am attempting to develop an awareness of, and a dialogue on, the relationships amongst these “modern demons” and ourselves.
Oil Spill (2007)
Agra-Business (2007)
Coal Guy (2007)
Fine Particulate Matter (2007)
Greenhouse Gases (2007)
Mercury Vapor (2007)
Nuclear Waste (2007)
Fossil Fuels (2007)