ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is grounded in Graffiti/Street Art and traverses into an interdisciplinary art practice in the studio, the gallery setting, and on some occasions, comes full circle back to the street and public realms. In this oscillation between these frameworks, I analyze the intrinsic cultural codes of my materials and artistic processes to access the transitional liminality which occurred in the shift from Graffiti Art to Street Art. This liminal shift was created in the art that was being produced subversively in the public, opening its dialogue up to the people-in-place using figure, form, object, and thing about Graffiti’s textbase. This liminality is a place of transition where usual boundaries of thought, self-understanding, and behaviour shift, opening the way to something new.
I use this oscillation process to expand the established conventions of art practices, defining the borders between Graffiti, Street Art, and conventional studio art practices. My creative methods of inquiry deviate between ‘the in-between’ of these threshold social spaces of analysis or public liminality, which is filled with the energy of anticipation, trepidation, and excitement. My objective is to capture this energy and feed it back to the viewer so that they are an embodiment of the phenomenon of liminality via the artwork. Interacting, connecting, contemplating, and oscillating back and forth within the space, place, and artwork.
My figurative works are derived from what I refer to as ‘intuitive line flow’ related to the Surrealist concept of Automatism, allowing the subconscious to guide the hand. It is also tied to the singular line a Graffiti artist uses in ‘tagging’ their name. I subvert and redirect the connotations of this line into figurative representations, the subjective motive of this line, by the rendering of the artist’s pseudonym, is rendered with an objective consideration, portraits, and figures. By this, I hold on to the spontaneity and energetic gestural nature of this line.
These figure-based works construct a cultural and ethnic, genderfluid hybrid; these diverse figures are interconnected to one another, forming tightly knit compositions of communities. Building connections and a sense of community is a meaningful endeavour I pursue through the creation of my artworks. My experience in being an integral part of a community where authentic connections are constructed saved my literal life. I am an addict in recovery. I used to live on the streets. I was a hopeless, bottom-out, skid-row addict. Addiction does not discriminate, hence my figurative representations. In Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, the members form an intimate connection with one another, which builds understanding through a lived experience. An immediate ability to directly relate forms the foundation for relationships. From here, we work on our character defects our behaviors, which are self-serving. Behaviours and resentments are at the root of my addiction. Working through this with a connected, understanding community is my way forward.
I want to create an intimate connection with my audience through the intervention of a liminal aesthetic experience via Placemaking, the creation of a special intervention to affirm specific meanings, always leaving room for further critique and confirmation as the context shifts. Essentially, my work is completed by the viewer and their interaction and experience with it. This is where space transitions into place via the people-in-place.