Studiowalls

What Lifts You Up Brings You Down

2008-03-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Finished with this one.

What Lifts You Up Brings You Down
84"x102"
Oil on canvas

The fat boy and little man

2008-03-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

The Fat Boy and Little Man
Two panels
24"x36" and 18"x36"
Oil on canvas

One Awkward Step
12"x12"
Oil on canvas

And another

2008-02-05T01:44:00.001-08:00

Conflict, collision and the promise of protection

2008-02-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been asked why I'm painting these new paintings of car wrecks.
When I started painting them I wasn't sure. I had collected the images some time ago from the net during a time when I was searching for images which to me conveyed the conflict between protection and control. This manifested itself in the series I did with birds being banded. The more I worked on the series the more I began to feel it became about birds and hands. The more of them collected together the more it became about the specific action being represented and not as much of the metaphorical implications I was getting at.
Feeling that, I began to look for other images that conveyed a similar dialogue. Driving home late one night from the studio, at the end of an exit ramp, was a car that had wrecked into a lamppost. The driver was alright but the car looked like a crushed can. When I saw that, the sense of security I felt in my own car was shaken. I realized that there are similar implications in that situation. We drive in these sealed in environments, feeling in control, protected and empowered but in a moment that can change.
I'm risking the same dilemma of loosing the metaphoric language of these images in doing so many of them but I'm enjoying the making of them - a prospect not to be taken lightly. More than likely these will be used in groupings along with other paintings or installation but for now I'll continue working on them. They are seductive.

Fresh paint

2008-01-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

All 12"x12"

Two shows, one night

2008-01-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

Two shows came up quick for me and both are opening the same night - January 12th!

The first is at Ore Projects in North Beach:

850 Greenwich St.
San Francisco, CA
Reception 7 - 10pm
Artwork by Bruk Dunbar, Lily Black and yours truly

Then my video, Five Constant Factors, is screening in the T-10 Festival at 21 Grand in Oakland:

the 8th Annual T-10 Video Festival
Two nights of short video works each clocking in at 10 minutes or less

January 12 & 13, 2008
Doors 8pm
Screening 8.30pm

Hold Still, I Love You

2007-12-17T13:34:00.001-08:00

"Hold Still, I Love You" 22"x28" Graphite on paper

Open Studios were Saturday. Thank you to all who came to them. The turn out was terrific especially for this time of year. I love all you art lovers.

Vacancy

2007-11-28T00:39:00.000-08:00

What was then...

What is now...

Some fellow grads interacting...

"One in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush"

2007-11-28T00:20:00.000-08:00

Five Constant Factors selected for "Grounded?" screening at Intersection for the Arts / SoEx

2007-11-26T01:01:00.000-08:00

My video, Five Constant Factors, which you can find in the archive, was selected for "Grounded?" screening at Intersection for the Arts / SoEx.

Info below:

December 9, 2007 7:00 PM

Sunday, Decmber 9, 2007, 7pm

Admission: $5-$15 sliding scale, FREE for members of both SoEx and Intersection
Location: Intersection for the Arts

Resevations: Seating is limited. Call Intersection's box office at 415-353-3311 or go to theintersection.org.

The birds are back in town

2007-11-26T00:53:00.001-08:00

"One in the Hand..."
Work in progress. Oil on canvas. 5' x 7'

Now for something completely different

2007-11-11T01:49:00.001-08:00

Drawing

2007-11-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

26"x20"
detail below

Secured

2007-10-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

Some new work

2007-10-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

things are looking up
11x14

what comes forward
12x12

give a dog a bone
12x36

bring you up, cut you down
12x6

Slow going but going + today's warm up

2007-09-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Warm-up

2007-09-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

I typically start out a night (or day) of painting by warming up with a smaller painting like the one above. These sometimes serve as studies for later, larger paintings. They allow me to explore images and subjects that interest me without necessarily demanding too much time. I have been doing many of these from disgarded snapshots I collect.

Bare bone painting part 2

2007-09-13T01:12:00.001-07:00

Second night.

Bare bone painting

2007-09-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I started today - 9/10/07. I thought I would post it's progression (or degression). Will be more recognizable later on. This is its bare bones.

Some recent smaller paintings - all 12"x12"

2007-09-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

A Mike Arcega project - Looping Honoring

2007-09-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the pleasure of working with Mike Arcega on a project of his entitled Loping Honoring. Mike is not only one of the best artists in the Bay Area (and outside of it) but he is also one of the nicest. Erin Neff, avid rock climber and opera singer, is the singer in the video. I shot the video and recorded the sound.

This is a re-making of a piece Mike did in 2001. Here's Mike's description of that piece:
"The Philippine’s national anthem, written in Tagalog, has been filtered through an English “spell check.” Consequently creating a stream of poetic, random, and “correctly” spelled words. The act of filtration hints at the idea of chance and cultural assimilation."
This time he took the spell check "corrected" Tagalog text and had Erin sing it in an operaic style.
The piece is on view at NURTUREart Gallery @ 910 Grand Street , East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, September 7th - October 7th, 2007.

If you want to see Mike's original piece go to:http://www.arcega.us/Work/EC21E2BA-BF8D-4132-9E29-2FBD598D9E64.html

Consequence

2007-09-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

Consequence

This is documentation footage of a video installation done last semester.
The installation came about from a pairing of two isolated events that I was able to capture on video. On the left is footage of a bee dying that I filmed for the upwards of an hour. I was walking to my studio and saw the bee on a step staggering. It became a drama unfolding, as I watched through the lens, this bee as its final moments passed. It was later attacked by ants (which really became heart wrenching to watch). The footage was very powerful to me and I tried to find a way to use it, but nothing seemed to work. It was shelved and I thought it would remain that way. Until I saw a snail. This snail was eating the petal from the tree in front of my building. It was busily munching away at the large fusha petal. I found its systematic consumption of, what many consider, a beautiful thing compelling. This time I took I shot in the studio. I brought the snail inside with the petal and trained my lens on it under a spotlight.
I realized shortly thereafter that these two events needed to be together. That the relation between the bee's death and the snail's consumption of the petal, which keeps it alive, was symbiotic -- at least metaphorically.

Videos from Fall 2006

2007-09-07T22:10:00.001-07:00

Five Constant Factors

Five Constant Factors is a painterly exploration of images taken from footage of the Normandy invasion in 1944. The title is derived from the Art of War by Sun Tzu. The five factors are: 1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth;(4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.

Forgetful in Repeating

An experimental video exploring on one hand a layering loop of degrading video and on the other a form of self self-portraiture or surveillance.

Out of the Dark

A re-shot montage homage to David Lynch

On the studio wall today 9/7/07 - "I hold you tight to keep you safe"

2007-09-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

This painting is using an image that has captivated me recently. The image is from a chapter describing how to tag birds from an encyclopedia I picked up. This is a "proper" way to hold birds when tagging them so that they are unhurt. What strikes me about this image is first how threating it seems and then how calm the birds look. The painting is roughly six feet by five feet so the hand holding the birds becomes a daunting presence for the viewer as well.

The title is: "I hold you tight to keep you safe"

First Year Review Statement

2007-09-07T20:42:00.001-07:00

"As Likely As"
73” x 84”
Watercolor on paper

As Likely As-2
64” x72”
Oil and acrylic on canvas

The images I am drawn to are images of conflict. Not depictions of physical conflict but images complicated by the discord that I (or for that matter – the viewer) have with the image. This complication is caused by an emotional, moral, political or societal perception of what is being represented.

This current body of work came out of a compulsion to represent the military image. Not the brutal images of war but a humanizing one. This began in part as a response to the depictions of war seen in the media but more pointedly is drawn from a personal history. Coming from a career military household the image of the military is very familiar, even homely, yet it is also a point of conflict that remains difficult for me to resolve. I know the soldier as family and friends over for dinner, while at the same time I feel anger and frustration towards the ongoing war. The soldier is the representative of the military system. As an image they become equated easily with war, and through war brutality, violence, pain and control. This is the soldier’s dilemma and mine as a soldier’s son.

The question became how do I work with this imagery without it being about war or this war? How can I represent the solider in a humanizing way? One that does not deny the violence inherent in being a soldier but also allows someone to identify with this image as something other than the knee-jerk reaction of solider=violence? How can I pictorially resolve this conflict?

What became clear to me through this body of work was that this conflict abounds through much of my life, it is inherent in the majority of images I continue to be attracted towards. In fact, it is my desire to understand an image that I am initially judgmental or have complicated feelings towards that drives me to rework it in paint or video – to see it intimately and study it.

So I complicate it. With paint, video, color, layers of imagery, pairings of images – whatever I can do to make some other sense of it. I am not looking to polarize a subject but to understand it for myself and see it new.