[Music]
I’ve always been drawn to stories of
exploration the scope of the vision the
ambition of it the amount of endurance
required and then of course the human
history of facing the unknown and
pushing into it so in 2015 my partner
Jamaican Alice and I decided to embark
on a grey expedition across the United
States we titled the expedition read
charting pre charted territory because
we were trying to reference this history
of exploration so we wanted to explore
that tradition as artists living you
know in the 21st century how do you
paint a landscape as an artist in the
21st century how do you explore the
Great Western wilderness of the United
States when it’s already been totally
explored and it’s all domesticated and
there’s very little wilderness and what
is so wild is highly managed
[Music]
from that experience we were on the road
for about seven months we came back home
with about 14,000 photographs so I would
say most of the work that I’m working on
now is utilizing those images you can’t
just stop and sit and try to think your
way into an interesting idea for me at
least I have to really be engaging with
something that has a lot of layers to it
that is inherently interesting or
complex in order to put myself in a
space where I can take advantage of
ideas as they emerge a lot of the
subject matter in the clashes are the
subjects that I’m interested in working
in my larger pieces so then when I do
get an idea for the larger artwork I’m
already in motion and I just take that
energy from the collage process right
into the body of work so this work is a
part of a project that I’ve been working
on for about five years
I take large rooms of paper I lay them
on a flat cement pad and hose it down
with water and then I can drop ink on it
[Music]
when you spread ink onto wet paper you
get these forms that are reminiscent of
clouds of atmosphere of cosmic weather
it is the same physics that dictate the
movement of that ink on paper as the
physics that dictate something that
might be happening in a star Factory you
know millions or billions of miles away
but you can see it on a human scale and
you can watch it in the human time scale
so it’s happening right in front of you
when I create a piece of paper that’s
stained like this you know it really
looks like a wild space it’s very
unpredictable very organic
and when I start to go in and work on
the structures they start to become like
these little domesticated spaces in this
wilderness and I think about the art
making process as kind of like going out
into uncharted territory where you don’t
really know where you’re going making
something that’s already so beautiful
more interesting requires you know a lot
more like sophistication on a part of my
ideas so I’m working on something right
now that’s going to lead me to a space
where I’ve learned something new about
what’s possible and to me that’s very
exciting because it is this constant
pushing forward into an unknown space to
try to figure out what possibilities lie
there you need to constantly be feeding
your sense of wonder and your sense of
curiosity
[Music]
[Music]
I’ve always been drawn to stories of
exploration the scope of the vision the
ambition of it the amount of endurance
required and then of course the human
history of facing the unknown and
pushing into it so in 2015 my partner
Jamaican Alice and I decided to embark
on a grey expedition across the United
States we titled the expedition read
charting pre charted territory because
we were trying to reference this history
of exploration so we wanted to explore
that tradition as artists living you
know in the 21st century how do you
paint a landscape as an artist in the
21st century how do you explore the
Great Western wilderness of the United
States when it’s already been totally
explored and it’s all domesticated and
there’s very little wilderness and what
is so wild is highly managed
[Music]
from that experience we were on the road
for about seven months we came back home
with about 14,000 photographs so I would
say most of the work that I’m working on
now is utilizing those images you can’t
just stop and sit and try to think your
way into an interesting idea for me at
least I have to really be engaging with
something that has a lot of layers to it
that is inherently interesting or
complex in order to put myself in a
space where I can take advantage of
ideas as they emerge a lot of the
subject matter in the clashes are the
subjects that I’m interested in working
in my larger pieces so then when I do
get an idea for the larger artwork I’m
already in motion and I just take that
energy from the collage process right
into the body of work so this work is a
part of a project that I’ve been working
on for about five years
I take large rooms of paper I lay them
on a flat cement pad and hose it down
with water and then I can drop ink on it
[Music]
when you spread ink onto wet paper you
get these forms that are reminiscent of
clouds of atmosphere of cosmic weather
it is the same physics that dictate the
movement of that ink on paper as the
physics that dictate something that
might be happening in a star Factory you
know millions or billions of miles away
but you can see it on a human scale and
you can watch it in the human time scale
so it’s happening right in front of you
when I create a piece of paper that’s
stained like this you know it really
looks like a wild space it’s very
unpredictable very organic
and when I start to go in and work on
the structures they start to become like
these little domesticated spaces in this
wilderness and I think about the art
making process as kind of like going out
into uncharted territory where you don’t
really know where you’re going making
something that’s already so beautiful
more interesting requires you know a lot
more like sophistication on a part of my
ideas so I’m working on something right
now that’s going to lead me to a space
where I’ve learned something new about
what’s possible and to me that’s very
exciting because it is this constant
pushing forward into an unknown space to
try to figure out what possibilities lie
there you need to constantly be feeding
your sense of wonder and your sense of
curiosity
[Music]
[Music]
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