of America: Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Stickers and acrylic $12,000 48x36" "Inspired by a plate from John James Audubon’s seminal Birds of America, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is cipher. It may or may not be extinct, an ambiguity that exists because there are periodic Bigfoot-like sightings of this elusive bird. However, the last definitive sighting in the US was in 1944. One of the largest woodpeckers in the world, the population of this species was devastated in the late 19th century due to habitat destruction and hunting. Because many hold onto hope that this bird still exists its status remains in limbo, while in this year alone 21 other species are removed from the endangered list (and are now considered extinct) by the US Fish and Wildlife Service."
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of America: The Choice of a New Generation
Sticker collage $10,000 36x48" "Inspired by a photo of activist Iesha Evans taken in 2016 at a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge by photographer Jonathan Bachman. The title is a reference to an advertising slogan by Pepsi, who recontextualized images like this one into a roundly vilified commercial for their product, of America is an intentionally unfinished sentence. It questions what defines being an American today and how the rest of the world perceives this country. Commercially produced stickers provide a perfect medium for expressing the overwhelming visual noise of American culture. Layered, in a technique inspired by my daughter’s own explorations with stickers as a two-year-old, the chaotic interplay of familiar pop culture elements becomes the tapestry out which I’m trying to form the counterpoint to the chaos."
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of America: Huddled Masses (x4)
Sticker collages
$16,000 ($4,000 each)
18x24"
Sticker collages
$16,000 ($4,000 each)
18x24"
"This series is based on the images that were published in the US Department of Homeland Security report on overcrowding and prolonged detention at Customs and Border Protection facilities in Texas released to the public in July of 2019. These are some of the most difficult pieces I’ve created using stickers both from a technical and emotional standpoint. When translating an image this way I have to study it intently, and I discover more and more detail within. Something I may have previously just casually glanced at is now investigated deeply and it becomes that much more real (and upsetting)."