spectacle

my statement of purpose from my last post has opened up a number of issues i'd like to address. one is the connection between my current paintings and my performance work from grad school, which culminated in the center for contemporary arts performance in santa fe (titled PAINTING COMPLEX, image from this performance shown above, along with a pic of a recent painting). this performance probed the line between entertainment and bodily harm. the spectacle, initially smelly, messy, funny and unruly eventually became dangerous to the point where audience members had to at least consider intervention. either that or run the risk of being implicated by the performer's (my) potentially self-harming actions. although my current paintings do not invite this kind of audience participation, there is still a sense of ruin that occurs amidst the spectacle. i think about exotic butterflies captured and exhibited under glass. i've seen things like this before, and it's utterly captivating. i would argue that a lot of the fascination has to do with the fact that the butterflies are dead. damien hirst incorporated dead exotic butterflies into some of his paintings, because he understands the pull of our morbid curiosity. in the case of my performance, people cheered for me with each successive physical feat. they urged me to press on, and, i believe, wanted me to push up against my physical limits, even while some, late in the performance, urged me to stop.

i'll finish this post quoting myself from the previous post: the central form in these paintings suggests exotic specimens presented as a kind of spectacle on account of their strangeness. underlying the spectacle is a veiled fear of the unknown that imbues the work with a menacing quality. ultimately, it is not nature that is on exhibit, but our fascination with the way things look.