artist statement
My work encompasses the entirety of my professional activities as a curator, programmer, writer and studio practice. This wide range of artistic production is united by an exploration of how shared cultural memory, in particular memory based on specific images, texts, and popular media can slip into fiction or fabrication, creating a partial truth recalled as authentic memory or experience. I am interested in how popular culture bonds with fragments of memory to create unexpected connections and points of entry, which linger decades later. I am fascinated in how familiar, yet isolated references can be combined to create a new experience, which is both personal, but strangely out of context. I view my role much like a DJ, sampling fragments of pop culture, personal and collective histories and false memories and combining them into a singular work. The key is in selecting, remixing and dropping of the appropriate sequence of samples, thus leading the audience to find meaning in unexpected places.
Common generational experiences and pop culture references form powerful shared histories. In my work the theme song to the Little House on the Prairie television series, the pattern of a Van Halen album cover or organizing a kickball tournament on the lawn of an art museum can trigger a cascade of related memories. Through appropriation of trivial, humorous or adolescent references, my work subtlety speaks to deeper issues of failure, loss, hope and anxiety. The resulting objects, spaces and events are imbued with deep personal, and surprisingly resonate significance.