2015
Five 5’x5’ oil on wood paintings, 44 caliber bullet holes, 12’ x25’ bullet screen
This piece focuses on trauma, its unpredictability, its lack of context, and its aggressively transformative power. Previously to this piece I worked on a series of paintings titled Accidental Skies. I would splash or drop different liquids over carefully prepared and painted surfaces. My intention was to introduce chance over the deliberate and to abandon total control over the outcome and final product. The accident happened in relation to the image without any warning, not allowing it to anticipate or adjust to the changes that came with this aggressive attack. The encounter with the reality of the physicality of the painting appeared as a perfect allegory for psychological trauma. All artifice or illusion proposed by the image collapses when confronted with the spill of liquid sitting on top of the surface, destroying any allusion to space or three-dimensionality. Furthering this idea, Shooting Skies was a commentary on the seductive and traumatic aspects of violence. By inserting the work into the discursive space of gun policies and politics in America. The accident this time was the deliberate but not controlled shooting of the carefully painted night skies. Sadly, this project is always relevant.
Oil and 44 caliber bullet holes on board, 5’x5’, 2015
Oil and 44 caliber bullet holes on board, 5’x5’, 2015
Bullet screen, 12’ x25’, 2015