ARTIST STATEMENT

As a sculptor and printmaker, my three dimensional works and etchings express outrage at the ongoing obliteration of antiquity due to warring factions. The ingredient that motivates the carnage is, of course, not religion — the trope used to manipulate war—but petroleum. In the Middle East, monuments that took centuries to plan and build have become rubble and dust.  Since the need for fuel – primarily for military purposes at first – arose at the beginning of the 20th century, we have seen ancient cultural heritage sites become magnets for foreign greed and for despotic acts of wanton destruction.My latest constructions represent the ruined temples of Syria and the treasures of Iraq. Hail and Farewell: Tyrants at Play at the SOHO20 Gallery (April 19 – May 20)  is an exhibition in which I try to evoke the senses of desperation and futility that come from seeing beautiful, civilized, cleverly engineered structures wantonly destroyed for political gain. Tiny hands — whose you can guess  — ballooning from the rooftops, salute, wave goodbye, give and revoke assent, and otherwise manipulate the future.  Twisted pipes, wires, rusted bedsprings and machine parts sprout from miniature buildings and columns made from cast concrete. Black “oil spills” made from polyester seep up through the floors threatening to obliterate the whole structure.

In my past work I have protested the extraction and processing of fossil fuels by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and drilling– processes which destroy most of the surrounding environment.  In general, I am concerned with commentary on the so called progress of civilization.