Every artist must at some point ask themselves…why do I really do this?  Why do I have to express myself in such an idiosyncratic way?  I’m a young artist who continually falls on his face with hit or miss gestures…but an indelible and youthful will to separate from the pack – I’m competitive and an incredibly harsh critic of my own work.  Yet photography remains fun, inspiring, my kindred spirit.

I unfortunately cannot create then suppress, which tells me at the end of the day, I don’t express for myself but again, for you.  Yes, the person reading this right now.  I need you so see my work, need you to experience the world through my eyes.  I need you to know my effort to create meaningful and lasting work is a wheel that spins tirelessly in my head.  If I could only let you see the colors I do, the subtleties – that’s what drives me…the pain to not pull someone right into my head at the moment I see fleeting beauty no matter how odd or obvious, obscure or obtuse.  I want you to experience visual and psychological truth the way I do.  It’s a completely self-serving venture and in many ways the irony remains my art aims for balance, an attempt to claim that my eyes can do just what I want others to do…enter another mind, another perspective and take in the beauty from the eyes of another – validating the outside world’s take on itself.

The Reaction

It’s what it is all about and all it will ever be about.  Whether it’s a car wreck, a touchdown, a masterpiece or a master piece of shit…I create for the reaction.  For at that very moment I am interacting, sharing, allowing a youthful soul to run around imagination and truth with another whether the conclusive thought is positive or negative, misconstrued or profound.

Maybe I should care about money more.  Maybe I should find it unacceptable that I’m okay not being a genius.  I am young and so is my art and encyclopedia of personal experience, but nothing feels better than watching someone react to my work – to see the subtle raise of their brow the moment the image takes shape and reveals itself to their eyes.  Then the suppressed grin when the conceptual poison, the meaning, has subverted a once empty cavity of experience and filled it with thought that had never been there before.  It makes me shiver just thinking about it.  Then the appreciation or criticism, both enliven me the same.  Whether my blood boils to defend or boils to purr over the affection of those who enjoy my creation, the endorphin is the same and it’s effect is will continue to unleash and inspire work forever and ever and ever.

Spirituality and subtlety of emotion make for duo rarely found to be in cahoots.   I’m not ashamed to say the underlying theme in all of my work is to capture the things in life we miss…to focus on the little things, to crop a vast landscape of imagery in an effort to find the leaf supporting the bead of water with the answer to our unfathomable, complex existence.  Each day I was able to repeat, but more importantly recreate a new vision simply by paying attention to what the sky had to say – the protective umbrella that illuminated the human playground, communicating its own linguistic expression of visual emotion.  I forged a deep connection to a spiritual voice I could speak to without saying a word.  It was as if I saw the moment when the sky assured all that is below that it came to be on account of the beauty latent within the unknown – offering all that roamed beneath the opportunity to explore in an attempt to know.  I simply feel the need to document, capture and allow the painfully communicative lines to seep into my heart and submerge it beneath a well of indescribable comfort – all that could never be answered with clarity as long as it beats on, but I will try with every photograph I take.

Life sometimes can be self-explanatory without self-explanation.  A spiritual state of mind can inflict upon a pair of eyes an ability to digest intense, unrelated light – involuntarily sentiment, the power to express faith…

…faith in the ground we walk on, the sea that surrounds us, the people that pass us by unaware, the answers without question, the intangible knowledge that we are surrounded by a beauty, however minute, worth recognizing and most importantly worth preserving.

Disclaimer:  All of the images described in this blog and the 143 magazines, art galleries, and bathroom stalls to follow are not to be taken more seriously then you take yourself.  (note: This may vary per reader).

Please accept in advance my apology for trying to call out an encyclopedia of images that don’t want their picture taken anymore and for attempting to find a beauty that exists without the need to airbrush your plastic tits.  Thank you.

1. Beauty needed to be seen in a new light (or an old one for that matter), clicking the proverbial fashion refresh button if you will.

2. Photography is begging to get it’s mojo back (or in English: making a silent plea for a return to the aesthetic and conceptual groundwork that separated the medium from painting, graphic design, and the point and shoot, can’t expose or light, but I can fix it in post and create some surreal shit.

3. We all need to laugh more often. 

Technically, I break down the conventions of fashion and glamour photography…the angles, settings, make-up designs, wardrobe, prop use, etc.  I satire, parody and sometimes pay homage to work from the past that both wrecked the art form for commercial conformity and dignified a youthful era in commercial art and photography by employing subtle technical and conceptual references.  To me, neither satire nor parody works if it’s too blatant and it must attempt to mask itself behind a replication of actuality.

China is Going to Fuck Us Up (economically speaking)

It’s certainly a perilous time for both the world and our country.  As trivial as commercial photography can be, any artistic gesture can socially define a culture through the visual guideline it creates and become an emblem of attitude for our youth and the rest of the world to see.  My work is a continual gesture of whimsy and raw emotion, a continual suggestion of course correction.  Politely and in equity I offer: “Fuck you Maxim.  Fuck you MOMA.  Now kiss and make up and so we can massage our collective egos fireside with some Perrier and caviar while debating the genius of Sir Warhol and the gears of his factory.”

Socially speaking the communicative possibilities of selling “fashion” and beauty are endless.  Fashion photography has always been a source of refuge where Art could hide as commerce and vice versa.  Wasn’t there something both striking and revealing in Avedon’s work – something that went beyond the brand he was selling?  Warhol submerged us in our own popular culture.  He sold, sells, and says….a lot…about us.  Images that don’t evoke lose their ability to communicate.  Images that regurgitate convention or repeat for the sake of proving marketability or technical prowess are simply empty gestures and only serve to piss off Iran and North Korea even more (just wanted to see if you were still paying attention with that last part).

Turning the Tide One Unconventional Image at a Time

Nothing changes without risk.  My shutter finger doesn’t even get out of bed unless it knows it will take one.  Personally, I can’t imagine defining my work by creating an image that I don’t make my own.  Derive all you want but the ensemble of influences should only support and not dictate the artist’s unique voice within the piece.  Whether the image is purely whimsical or a serious jab at reshaping or creating new fashion forward conventions, all the pieces in this series are aimed at evoking an emotion or feeling and cushioning the sensory pleasure at it’s core with a defined yet subtle gesture of meaning.

Photography gave me a piece of clay to work with.  I looked around to see all the other students who were given the same piece, yet they all chose to mold the same figure.  With this series I smiled at my piece of clay and started to mold all of the students – a portrait of what it looks like to see creatives creating the same thing.

A Conclusive Paragraph that Doesn’t Start with the Word “Overall”

Warhol decided to make a can of Campbell’s soup a piece of art as a gesture against the conventional wisdom of art itself, while still employing a satirical gesture and recognition of mass production and consumerism’s affect on pop culture and vice versa.  What I’m trying to say is that commercial photography has become an endless shelf of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and with these images I present to you the “most gorgeous” can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup…ever. 😉

For me, images process in my head like lightning.  But I need them, need to see them, understand them and even experience them the way I would a living, moving moment.  Everyday I look though hundreds of portfolios looking for images that will inspire, finding images that disgust, and seeing equivalent passion amongst a community of artists who all have very different modes within the medium.  What seems to be lacking amongst our community?

Vision.

The irony…

So, where are we at?  I’d say our medium has grown a lazy eye, a voice with no vocal chords, and a young generation of image-makers influenced to produce solely for aesthetic pleasure and not for what evokes a timeless image, a slow sacrifice of the communicative possibilities of the captured reality.

It seems that even photography is troubled by the plague of unoriginality that seems to hamper other art forms where the claws of marketing and commerce become beneficial, tempting and unison in function.  I’ve always believed that all good art is derivative of pre-existing work and ideas (where would one find influence?), but where I draw the line is where concept is blurred by laziness and the images become buried by technology for technology sake.

What happened to the straight photograph?  Is it now impossible to capture beauty, universal truth and emotion without butchering the digital negative?  Photographers have always manipulated in post, hell, Ansel Adams and others along the way who’ve mastered the age old zone system of black and white photography have found that bringing out the richest blacks, the whitest possible highlight with detail — the most aesthetic pleasing qualities of the photographs can only enhance, make good photographs great.  They understood the potential of the latent photograph was far greater than a simple negative could explain – there was contrast to be found, shadow and highlight to be unearthed and vibrant color in least expected places.  But it’s not the same any more.  Photoshop and the digital realm has blessed us with the opportunity to visually explore the depths of the most surreal subconscious, to replicate our wildest images…but why?  Just because?  Great answer, dude.  I guess that is what seems to be lacking in this conversation…not the modem operandi but the thought, the reason, the message.

“But I’m not about that.  I just make beautiful images.”   That’s been my greatest dilemma as I’ve grown as an artist…fighting “cool”.  By that I mean the culture of “cool” in the art world.  Call it conceptual apathy, instant aesthetic gratification, but to create an image that enacts a gut reaction alone numbs the insides of our art form, leaving it solely to superficial recognition of the image itself……..and then we move on.

Granted society has changed and I can even look to myself.  When I look through portfolios, I spend maybe 20 seconds max looking through any…not allowing myself to recognize nuance, maybe neglecting the majority of the work I see.

Here is the original solution:  Don’t be afraid to shoot and exhibit the photograph that exists as it is.  Defy and stand up to convention….my answer to “cool” is “please elaborate.”  Critical thought is difficult…because it requires, well, thought.  But to fight the stale repetitions of the same photograph over and over again you have to show me what I’d least expect…and right now what I’d least expect is to see an image that was captured as it is, left as it is, to speak as it is.  Art is defiance.  Defiance is change.  Am I referencing the basic properties of color correction, spotting and cropping…no….I’m talking about the salvation of an image in post by means of the “steroids” Photoshop provides.  The line in this only blurs when there is solid and focused aesthetic and conceptual bond….focus and meaning.

We’ve all had those moments when we return home from a trip or an extended time away and our senses immediately grasp on to what we know to be familiar, the comfort that we can identify with — home.  It’s often recognized that memory’s closest ally in the world of human sense is smell.  In this new fine art series entitled “Structural Familiarity”, I aim to put together a group of images that take a closer look into the subconscious visual aspects that elicit our loyalty, the recognition of where our hearts claim to reside.  Generally, we are unaware of these physical aspects, often taken for granted in the day to day, but this is no different as we can only categorize memories relation to smell in an afterthought.  Well, here is your afterthought, as images.

Whether it be the odd tree in your backyard, the lawn chair that has sat uncleaned for years, your family’s idiosyncratic interior decoration, or the wear of the stucco on your house, all of these visuals subtly add up to the culmination of familiarity and comfort – how Home shows ID.

Technically, my approach was to create a body of work that didn’t rely on a unison of imagery in a typological sense, but rather one that got straight to the nuts and bolts of the physical elements I speak of.  Making banal imagery interesting and beautiful is always a challenge, beginning a body of work that relied on concept rather than concise visual unity is a whole other challenge.  The images that ended up working in the initial phase of the project came together from a formal aspect because of their texture and color.  Conceptually, I feel the images proposed a unique look at common and nostalgic imagery that adheres to the theme.  The photograph of the stairs for me is a good example.  The texture, color and form created by the worn turquoise stairs capsulized an image that functioned well as a stand alone photograph and one that could easily put a frame around a specific area of one’s existence that was an identifier of home.

The physical elements that surround and shelter us seem to act as a similar security blanket to our mind, wrapping our visual subconscious with the sense that we can let down our guard and experience life unattached to the worry and doubt that the outside world creates.  I’m loyal to the dingy brown carpet that spreads across my grandmother’s house, the old pictures and southwestern pottery that line it’s interiors.  I’m comfortable with the rust on the hinges of our garage, the old oak tree in the backyard.  If I could not see these elements, maybe my memory would only have a sense of smell to identify home, and frankly, that would never be enough.

The fundamental roots of this series spawned from the thematic and theatrical elements laden within the works of Edward Hopper and more prevalently the iconic “Untitled Film Stills” series from Cindy Sherman.  It is a body of images that are meant to be as melancholy and banal as they are vivid and cinematic.  As long as I have lived in Los Angeles, I’ve been fascinated by a cumulative population of dream seekers and those who chase the fruits of pop culture’s supposed greatest reward: stardom.  Furthermore, what often follows is a disillusionment and or desensitization to the surrounding world and the emotional and sociological problems that effect the bulk of this country (oft, those of the middle class and hometowns of many of LA’s “starry-eyed commuters”).  Whether stardom is achieved or not, in it’s place, you find souls driven or submerged in excess, bound by rejection/achievement and unapologetic ambition to be a part of the fictional world the normal American escapes to in droves weekly (cinema), and idolizes in gossip magazines daily (celebrity).

The country by and large has a quite dynamic give and take relationship with Hollywood and broadly it’s effect on pop culture.  America’s middle class consumes its fashion and the drama on and off screen.  The middle feeds ferociously on scandal and voyeuristic snapshots into the real-life personas that live behind the fictional characters they let enter their own lives.  Hollywood feeds on revenue and more importantly the endless troupe of those who wish to be apart and or create pop culture.  It provides a fantasy land apart from anything that mimics the day to day for what 95% of Americans know – surreal, glamorous, invading, perversely, public privacy.

This is where the line blurs.  Why America struggles to find interest in its core (the middle-class) can be debated for hours.  Where the middle class finds reality in Hollywood is to me, even more indecipherable.  The complication created is a world of those who don’t have, wish to attain, and a reality that the world is as defined in it’s fictional representation (cinema) as in it’s quasi-reality (see US magazine).  There in lies the foundation of the images.  When a nobody becomes a somebody out here, they have not solely ascended within an industry; they have suddenly become a starlet across the globe.  Welcome, Alice, to Wonderland.  And as Alice makes her journey and creates trends, while being prodded and depicted by both visual artists of genius and genuine inability, she too becomes a fictional element or momentary icon that never really leaves what America deems her to be.  Notice how our starlet has attained gender…

The Starlet’s Gender Identity

I chose to focus this series solely from the perspective of the female.  To be shamefully frank, the industry is driven by sex, and the female, unfortunately is still the prime “object” of attraction.  Brain still resides in the shadows of brawn, and it is no more evident beneath what pop culture let’s into its creative lair, than the iconic female image it creates.  Leisure time is as essential an element to the creation of trend and entertainment as Marilyn Monroe is to lure the teenage boy into the theater to partake in a fictional world glazed over by sexual fantasy.

From these general assessments and my consideration of how influential artists from the past characterized the role of celebrity and female identity in pop society (Warhol, Sherman, etc.), I formed the base structure and tonality I aimed to portray in a group of images that only dip their feet into Sherman’s work, but plunge whole heartedly into a portrait of alienation and a quintessential “fish out of water” metaphor for middle class society’s relationship with pop culture.

Technically, I wanted to create a series of images that followed the progress of our middle class starlet as she makes her way through the banality of the urban landscape of Hollywood.  I wanted to create scenes driven by the narrative, by light, in many ways to create a film still.  I wanted to straddle the line of photographic connotation between glamour and tableaux.  The reason for this was to illustrate the delicate balance between a functioning narrative and an image of pure lust or beauty portrayed (see female identity above).  I directed the models to become that fish out of water, waiting for something, waiting for the approval of pop culture as if it were a figure itself.  I juxtaposed the classic looks of vintage celebrity with the model’s hair/make-up and wardrobe and posed them against otherwise banal and uninteresting urban settings and backgrounds.  Even the shots with the models in the hills are meant to have a banal beauty to them, flawed landscapes, evidence of wear.  These two characters live as personified metaphors in an alternate reality that is vivid and graceful structurally, but poignant and melancholy beneath the surface of the expression and posture.

The inconsistent and disharmonious relationship between the model, her setting and the surreal nature of the given narrative within the scene should create a relatively similar response with the viewer.  As a nation our view of celebrity and pop culture is skewed, unrealistic and superficial.  These images should encapsulate that same feeling, ironically set, lit and composed in the format and style that is fed to us daily theatrically or otherwise.  I want each image to brush up against the paparazzi, to dine with Hitchcock, to be in front of the lens of Richard Avedon himself.  Together, these connotations, along with the harsh light and formal elements of color, will aid in depicting a loss of innocence similar in tone to that of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” or “New York Movie”.

As a country our voyeuristic obsession with the celebrity and the lifestyle associated with that has drawn the ire of country’s considered both friendly and enemies – a symbol of a wealthy country’s neglect for modesty and penchant for wasteful excess.  We know at heart we are not that.  We are not the over-sexed, drug addicted young starlet who can’t keep a lens away from her face, but rather the hard working, blue collar woman forging to build a career, respect, and live with freedom of expression and happiness without excess.  These characters are lost, but show the resolve to be found.  They are beautiful and endearing, vain, but aware of their flaws.  They are symbols that go beyond the objectification and sensuality of lifestyle and fantasy.  These characters are America’s Middle-Class Starlets.