Sensitive White Boy Syndrome
Sin City Gallery, Las Vegas, NV 2017
paintings, drawings, collages
ARTIST EXHIBITION STATEMENT
A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he
does not know why he is not one of the others. In bed next to
a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is
himself instead of the body he touches. Without knowing it, he
suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from scream-
ing that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while
shuddering in his arms.
–Georges Bataille
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my own ignorance
and insensitivity concerning interactions with people
in my life. Politics have given rise to this focus
recently. As an artist working in a narrative and
figurative format, I feel my own interpretations of
image and their depictions shifting and changing. With
wishes for my own increased sensitivity and recogni-
tion come more openings for transgression to seep in.
I feel art must be examples of truth beyond statements.
Questioning of life as guided by the heart and soul
are beacons. Hopefully passion can still
exist however numbed by guilt one becomes.
In Terry Gilliam’s Brazil: bombs explode within a
restaurant where well-to-do affluent people gather to
eat and flatter one another with words of inflation
about their youthful surgeries and trendy fashion ex-
penses. Fire, smoke, shrapnel, nothing fazes these
purple poodles of an elite class because they are of
a stature and class untouchable.
My petition is to remain in the studio asking
questions even if there are no obvious answers.
For many years now I have been referencing the same
compilation of erotic drawings and etchings by The
Marquis Von Bayros. I have been combining and
morphing this imagery to undermine the overt hetero-
erotic nature of this beautifully patterned imagery.
Within the works’ narratives already exists youthful
curiosity to sexual experimentation as well as sub-
missive and dominant roll playing between women,
women and men, albeit under the harsh gaze of the
male. By changing the gender identification of sub-
jects I am able to exaggeratedly promote further
transgressions (homo- and pan- sexuality; castration,
death and rebirth, spirituality, laughter…) for the
purpose of addressing erotic feelings within the
viewer that he/she might feel to be exposed or
exploited.
I look at these same images now, remembering Brazil,
with a newfound avenue for transgression concerning
ownership of place and things. The opulence of Von
Bayros’ rococo environments cannot go unnoticed.
Playful actions takes place across manicured lawns
atop fountains that become sexually aroused them-
selves, and within interiors filled with scrolling
gilded frames, delicate linens and a plethora of
flowing detailed patterned fabrics, strands of hair
become their own intricate pattern work. Now I see
these images of place as luxury and status of
pillaged ignorance. In these new works I have a
heightened awareness that freedom for self-
expression/exploration need not require a place of
safe opulence.
These are shifts in awareness that embolden ex-
pression to flourish and freedom to question the
acceptance of self and others. These depictions make
more public what happens in private.
For the first time in over 15 years I now live in a
more conventional house in Joshua Tree, having left
the urban live/work industrial warehouse I had be-
come accustomed to. Because of this, these newer
pieces take on new meaning simply in their size.
They are not intimate drawings in a book, nor are
they large bold statements that demand all attention
in the room. Having new living quarters, I now under-
stand that everyday living with more modest-sized
glimpses into these alter-realities can provide more
intimacy for engagement by the viewer. It can be a
piece that can be glanced upon and pondered as I
brush my teeth or simply walk from one room to
another within a coexistence. As well, these new
pieces can speak to one viewer at a time and offer
insights more direct and personal.
I explore this in drawings with more elaborate de-
corative frames to mimic actions internally to then
exude that sense of place within the reality of the
place and room it exists. Collages on wood without
such frames explore similar hybrids of themes using
adult magazines joined together with sewn thread
lines of color with a more haphazard sense of
fleeting impermanence.
We are entering a time when more personal examples
are to be shared as ways for people to persist to
endure. In this place we are entering we plant
truths that will be celebrated, tolerated and
provide foundation like magnificent trees of a
forest. For my part, I simply share entrance into
my own germinating garden. And ultimately for the
first time in my life as I write these words, I
realize myself and my artwork have always been
with one foot kicking in the church’s door and the
other full-on shit in the gutter.
A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.
–Georges Bataille
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