This body of work began as a response to the space in which it would be shown: the Mezzanine Gallery, located in the Carvel State Office Building in Wilmington. It is a drab, municipal, State Building and visitors must pass through metal detectors. Art work can’t be hung on the wall except by use of clips. In response to visiting the site, I decided to create a body of work that would attempt to respond to the drabness and hide the space as well as take viewers out of the surrounding municipal feel of the space.

Long, screen printed fabrics hang from the walls with patterns suggestive of Op-Art and the Dazzle patterns used in WWI to visually camouflage ships on the horizon from enemy boats in the area. The patterns were all created using luminance (greyscales) and bitmapped images that were further manipulated to create abstract patterns.

The patterns are meant to not only distract and prompt eye movement, but to visually stimulate people, not unlike our addiction to social media (but without scrolling). It is a response in part to our overstimulated lives of 24 hour news media, war and partisan politics, used in the hopes of distracting in a meditative sense.

The reference to Saturn plays out in a few ways. I was a young adult when the Cold War “ended” and the fall of the Berlin Wall, paired with the rise of the internet signaled a time of great potential, which in my lifetime and perspective has not come to bear fruit. Instead of a global wave of democracy and shared information, we have experienced a malignant, corporate, globalization.

The myth of Saturn presents a figure dating back to pre-mass governance (as we know it today), that was more societally agricultural and thus connected to the earth. Saturn represents structure and wisdom, hope, desire and chance, creation and destruction: the possibility of humans to function in anarchy or as a structured collective (government). Saturn represents to the possibility of change and so these images also reflect a an attempt to offer a contemplative space (even within an old, municipal, governmental building) to think on hope, possibilities and change even within the system.

Screen Print, Seeds

Screen Print, Seeds, environmental/social progress

Screen Print. 22”x32”

Screen Print on Plexi light box.

Screen Print on Plexi

Screen Print. Edition of 10

The profile of Thomas Jefferson lies on its side on a wobbly pedestal. The contents of Jeffersonian thought spilling over. It references money (capitalism), the Civil Rights act of 1964 (still seemingly unachieved in today’s ever widening socio-economic gaps and police killings), it implies the dark history of a “Founding Father” held to such high regards, despite owning slaves and finally, an image of Harriet Tubman (taken from the still planned, but unprinted $20 bill, that would replace another slave owning persona on the bill). It isn’t obvious, but it begs reflection upon our history and future and what we do with our democracy.

Peril Remains, Dreams Clean the importance of dream-life: time spent outside of lived reality. This includes a loose sense of meditation: time spent shaking off contemplation and frustration with today’s crushing sense of political and cultural huliganism. We need a punching bag, a soundtrack and physical meditation (movement) to find recompense and reconciliation from today’s atrocities. The system is broken (and maybe it was never working for the majority of people). This work represents a response and the potential for change, like lightning: it appears to strike from above, but it originates from the ground up.

Varying Dimensions. 2021

Peril Remains, Dreams Clean considers the importance of dream-life: time spent outside of lived reality. This includes a loose sense of meditation: time spent shaking off contemplation and frustration with today’s crushing sense of political and cultural huliganism. We need a punching bag, a soundtrack and physical meditation (movement) to find recompense and reconciliation from today’s atrocities. The system is broken (and maybe it was never working for the majority of people). This work represents a response and the potential for change, like lightning: it appears to strike from above, but it originates from the ground up.

Peril Remains, Dreams Clean: Lightning Bolt - Lightning Strikes Up (Side A) represents the idea of lightning striking from the ground up, or a positive look on today. Images of friends and family and drawings made during Covid while listening to music and influenced by meditation are drawn and printed on the “Side A” of the Lightning Bolt. These are images conceived out of necessity during the pandemic as a means of maintaining a sense of positivity.

Screen printed wood panels, welded structure, sound system & speakers with 60 minute soundtrack. Approximately 30”x48”x96”. 2021.

Peril Remains, Dreams Clean: Lightning Bolt - Lightning Strikes Down (Side B) represents the idea of lightning striking down from above, or a negative perspective thee state of the country today. Desaturated, metallic, screen printed images represent the polluting, negative effects of rampant climate change, clandestine, international drone strikes and systemic violence domestically.

Behind the front grills of the Lightning Bolt are a set of 18” speakers and a soundsystem producing an hour-long soundtrack of collected recordings, samples and music created during Covid (inside and outside home). The length of the recording is analogous to the average length of evening news programs and the desire to escape the past 6 years of news, news cycles, deciphering truth from fable and to disconnect. Many of the sounds collected come from recordings made while sitting in a small, urban back yard, exercising or walking the dog during the pandemic: often the only time spent outside (meditatively). Samples used represent time spent inside, looping, repeating and stuttering alongside bass lines. These sounds contrast the outdoor recordings of escape, representing the feeling of infinite isolation spent inside in the past two years.

The punching bag and surrounding walls consider the importance of dream-life: time spent outside of lived reality. This includes a loose sense of meditation: time spent shaking off contemplation and frustration with today’s crushing sense of political and cultural huliganism. The punching bag allows for an output and an outpouring of pent-up physical emotion, whether it is spent punching, kicking or hugging the bag.

The patterned skin of the bag and the walls come directly from a desire to represent a visual, meditative escape (from social media, the news, devices, etc). The staccato patterns respond to the soundtrack emitted from the Lightning Bolt.

Varying Dimensions.

Screen printed canvas walls (approx. 384” x 108”). 2021.

Screen printed punching bag (approx. 16” x 40”). 2021.

photo by Raúl Romero!

The Dream Box uses a repurposed ammunitions case, housing a small soundsystem, which ads recorded dreams to the sonic landscape of the installation, floating over the soundtrack of the Lightning Bolt’s samples, soundbites and bass lines. Each morning, I habitually record the dreams of the previous night. The dreams recorded in this installation come from dreams recorded during the past 2 years of the Covid pandemic. They reveal adventurous hopes, fears, insecurities, the brain’s frustrated desire to parse and accomplish mundane tasks and unknown psychology of the day to day.

It is a recurring and repurposed format (used in previous works to house sound pieces used as sonic ammunitions in various storytelling roles).

Munition box, speaker, sticker, soundtrack loop, editioned, screen printed booklet/passport. Box is 7.5” x 11” x 3”. Book is 3.5”x5”, 2021

2021.

Munition box, speaker, sticker, soundtrack loop, Screen printed book. 7.5” x 11” x 3”.

A 60 minute sound track loop is played in speaker-munition box.

The box is accompanied by a "Passport of Transmigratory Confinement" (attached as a separate image and explanation).

"Transmigratory", meaning passing from one soul to another in transition. "Confinement" meaning the state of being confined or restricted, within limits or being kept in place.

Passport of Transmigratory Confinement: "Transmigratory", meaning passing from one soul to another in transition. "Confinement" meaning the state of being confined or restricted, within limits or being kept in place.

This screen printed booklet contains a collection of drawings (screen printed in a variety of colors) originally inked as a nightly exercise throughout the pandemic of both Covid and the Tr*mp presidency. Each night, I draw for the length of an album with the intention of illustrated meditation as a means of quieting the day’s chaos. During a significant portion of the first year of Covid, I drew while listening exclusively to Charles Mingus’ “Black Saint and the Sinner Lady”, not only for Mingus’ genius and political intentions with the album, but also because the album was itself a meditation on the day: it’s liner notes were written by Mingus and his psychotherapist Edmund Pollock.

3.5”x5”, Editioned, screen printed book. 2021.

Taking it’s cue from 1984’s double-speak, this work speaks to the simple fallacy of the truth troubles facing the United States of America (and others) under the current resurgence of populism in global politics today. When everything is fake news, we have reached the end/sign-off of broadcasting.

Screen Print on plexiglass in wooden box. Interior lights (shown in white, but lights change color eratically in person). 24” x 36”. 2020.

This piece relates the familiar format of a backlit advertisement kiosk or film poster advertising a system in the grips of late stage capitalism: continuing to churn away, promising fast food and digital wealth in exchange for a delusional system, built on fossil fuel, saturated fat, genetically modified pesticides and fast money.

Screen Print on plexiglass in wooden box. Interior lights (shown in red, but lights flicker like an old sign in person). 24” x 36”. 2020.

Screen print on plexi and wood. Interior lighting. 18”x28”x3”. 2021.

This work structurally and metaphorically calls to mind our current socio-political systemic structure: somewhat rigid, triangular (top-down strata) and full of rhetoric that serves to keep the structure afloat and at the same time pulls it down. The piece suggests both an upward potential and/or a leaning or falling motion: the democratic potential for a better future or a fractured downfall. Behind the speaker grills, reems of printed dollar bills adorn the surface around the speakers suggesting payola: the cost of supporting and promoting the current version of democracy practiced in the “Western World”. Democracy for those that can afford to participate.

The speaker grills of gold and copper over dollar bills lend the only color to an otherwise black and white surface, suggesting a sense of energy springing forth sonically from the speaker cones. Within the soundtrack are layered references to the multitude of perspectives, possibilities and shortcoming of a democracy’s voice: rhetoric, propaganda, philosophies, potentiality and revolution spring forth, holding hands with fake news, twisted hyperbole and oral histories leading to an uncertain future. The voices and sounds come from any number of sources ranging from travel recordings, social media and youtube.

The entire structure stands on top of a circular carpet emblazoned with the familiar seal of the U.S. government: the voice and pulpit of global democracy leading us one step forward and two steps back with its pay to play philosophy of how things get done in a world catering to big business and old, monied interests.

Wooden structure, speakers, printed fabric speaker covers, cinder block, rope. Sound track (60 min. Compositional loop). 20”W x 50” H x 36”L. 2021.

57:15 min soundtrack to One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

Screen Printed plexi, mirror and wood with speakers and soundtrack (6:16 min.). 50” x 30”. 2018.

The piece’s stuttering use of color, lines and information attempt to dazzle the viewer, referencing our oversaturated addiction to media and online resources. Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Young” is referenced, with the site of the Saturn’s face taking a bite replaced by a hole revealing a mirror. Viewers are faced with themselves, begging the question: “Are we helping or harming our current situation?”. Are we complicit in our country’s actions? Our own? “Illusions of Free Will” is plays across the screen of a radio, while black and white police officers cover their ears. The Statue of Liberty is struck by lightning. A soundtrack of droning guitars play back and forth on the speakers, while snippets of news media and flash news soundtracks ping pong back and forth between the speakers.

Munition box, speaker, sticker, handbook, soundtrack loop (8:28 min.). 2019.

Housed in a munitions box, this piece recalls the potential for democracy to go wrong and for history to repeat itself. The US issues munitions box represents military aid, or “democratic support” for US allies.

Sound bites include the voices of Chilean military coup generals discussing their patriotic duty to overthrow democratically elected, President Allende. The soundtrack concludes with Allende’s final speech to the nation as he praises the potential for people to create a better society. Throughout the soundtrack, snippets of Trump and Steve Bannion are peppered over feedback and a beat metering of time passing. Their voices extole the “democratic” virtues of water boarding, white privelage, entitlement and fearmongering.

The small book appropriates the format and appearance of a CIA manual on counterinsurgency methods, however its content is subverted to give examples of critical perspective on the fragility of democracy.