Artist Statement III

–for the work “What are you doing with that iceberg?”

Collectively, observations in the appearance of these monsters conclude that this cosmos is not to endure eternally, but that it likewise will have its end.

From ancient times in the fabrications of a god, to the unknown truths of beasts and monsters that walk among us, illumination and skepticism are always at the forefront. The etymological presentation of the term hoax comes from the word hocus –– meaning to conjure up, cheat, impose upon –– with heavy ties to the history of witchcraft, a form of worship shunned by the establishment, including the church and its communities. Hoaxes have been largely used as an excuse for great manipulations in history and have acted as a stand-in for the unknown or the mysterious. The world’s history holds close the idea of illuminating mysterious happenings and anchors to the unknown. Our minds elaborate on these mythologies, making believe, letting the imagination hold onto something true in the “untrue”. These types of illuminations can, and often are, filled with contradictions, a trick to the eye or something that sits on the periphery. In the same context, dark can be light, while the concrete can be filled with the ethereal. Stories have been told of men –– in the form of prophets –– walking on water, being reborn from death, materializing from thin air. In a contemporary culture, faced with it’s own mortality; the human race appears to be on the verge of extinction. Ice melts at a rapid pace, carbon counts are off the charts and yet we still hold fast to the destruction before our eyes. Willingly our participation can be chronicled in continuing to believe nothing is wrong.

Our dialogical storytelling of the human/monster (wolf-man, vampire, zombie) is more tangible and believable to us than our ensuing death of another type of monster we have created. We choose to believe in a hoax, giving credit or meaning to our “otherness”, as though we need to arrive into our most difficult moments unprepared with complete ignorance of the situation. In the end the we choose not to believe, sometimes making play of absurd manifestations and relationships to the self, an illuminating and profound state of human thinking, in an uncertain present time, looking at the nostalgic patterning of the past.

This work is an attempt to make sense of a failing planet and failing human sentiment.