Artist Statement
Comical elements in society are observations that I have gravitated towards and have inspired my work. In this body of artwork of the past five years, I am addressing the UFO phenomenon and displaying it in terms that become both amusing and vulnerable sensibilities of the subject.
In the UFO series, I explore the fine line between fantasy and reality. People tend to believe that photography offers a true depiction of the subject rendered in a given image. This misapprehension adds a new layer of meaning and vulnerability to what is presented as reality. UFO subculture is a phenomenon fed by film, popular culture and myth. We hope that we are not alone and at the same time we painfully fear that we are. As we look towards the evening skies, we expose our hopes and our fears of planetary solitude that awaken the remnants of reality and fabrication. To emphasize the differences between the remnants of reality and fabrication, I have placed spacescapes in settings that have just enough information to allow the viewers to fill in the gaps.
The humor lies in the realization that one is looking at a common object like a lamp and not a UFO or an alien prop and not an actual alien. When the viewer realizes the disjuncture between what they have seen and what they have imagined, they must laugh at themselves and the trap they have been led into. Using flashlights, filters, hubcaps, and a variety of other props, I set out to document a UFO's path to contact with people on Earth, specifically in Miami. I try to create a beautiful image, one that reflects the beauty of the cosmos artificially by means of these props in an idealized, darkroom-created galaxy. I achieve this best when I manipulate 35mm photos, overlapping images until the universe I desire materializes, creating spacescapes that could be read as planetary images like those seen from the Hubble telescope.
Using the technique of collage and Polaroid’s, I build a narrative of UFO sightings, which are placed under a grid created by the edges of the Polaroid’s. Each image is a straightforward, unaltered shot. I experiment with distance and lights to ruse the viewer into imagining possibilities beyond the simple, photographed props. The mind fills in the information I have left out. The light from an adjacent room escapes underneath a door and appears as a shooting star. A barricade of flashlights performs a dance of fictitious stars.
My latest artwork series Alien in Miami, I document the story of what would happen if an alien crash landed on earth, more poignantly here in Miami. The alien would repeatedly attempt to adapt to our environment of a large city like Miami, (known for its image consciousness, social status and sexuality) leads to frustration and awkwardness as he tries, but ultimately fails to achieve the conformity he thinks is necessary. Though his explorations of physical relationships lead him to experience even puberty, his inability to fit in creates the tension and frustration that we all face daily.
I not only use UFOs and aliens as vehicles to discover challenging scenarios that are humorous, they also serve as images whose phoniness force one to let go of any preconceived notions in order to discover the unexpectedly beautiful. |
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