19 December 2024
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your series Menagerie: An Exquisite Corpse Carousel? What first drew you to the symbolic world of the carousel?
I started making the Menagerie series after a period of some woodworking experiments, including a mediocre relief-carved image of carousel horses. This was after we had moved to North Carolina, and I had just started to ease back into a creative practice after a long hiatus. I had dabbled in carnival imagery before in my artwork - mostly psychedelic brightly colored paintings evoking flashing lights or the curves of a roller coaster. These were pleasant enough to look at, but there wasn’t much in the way of depth to them. They alluded to a time and place for me, but didn’t say much beyond that. I’ll never forget my first (and last) grad school critique of this work…hearing your professor call your work “dumb” and “high-schoolish” tends to dampen one’s enthusiasm, but that’s for another post. If I was going to head down this road again, I needed to be able to create imagery that was maybe more rooted in honesty and commentary, not just formalism or decoration. And so, the Menagerie series was born.
I had often played "exquisite corpse" drawing games over the years with my kids and co-workers to pass the time, and decided it might be fun to portray a carousel animal as such with the hopes of fracturing the nostalgia just enough. The result was perfect for my mindset at the time...a creature saddled with great expectations that just couldn't seem to live up to them. My favorite thing about these paintings is the defeated, tragic nature of these characters as they try their best to stand as ambassadors for this imaginary carousel. Adding text and presenting the paintings as signage allowed me to inject some humor as well, which was a new thing for me.
The carousel is often associated with nostalgia and childhood joy. Why did you choose to pair this motif with Surrealism and the Exquisite Corpse game?
It started when I was a stay at home dad with my kids in Brooklyn. We would go to various parks and zoos in and around New York City, and if there was a carousel, we were damn sure going to ride it. It seemed like a given, no thinking necessary - as if their childhood would somehow be incomplete without a go 'round on some wooden pony (no doubt covered in snot and various other cooties.) I'm not exaggerating when I say that I honestly believe we rode every available carousel in the tri-state area between the years of 2008-2016.
OK…spinning around on a pony or ostrich or whatever, I wasn’t necessarily thinking that these were moments I should remember forever…but they just seemed to naturally wiggle into my subconscious. These rides actually did represent a few minutes of innocence and no-strings-attached joy for us and all the other pony / ostrich riders. My life became tantamount with my kids' lives for a brief moment, and I got to see the world through their eyes. All that Catcher In the Rye stuff is no joke...
But as I mentioned earlier, if I was to make art about the carousel as a metaphor, it would have to be a bit more honest. Moments of frustration, anxiety, and despair were often more prevalent in my life than carefree joy and child-like wonder. The exquisite corpse allowed me to symbolically shatter the rosy nostalgia, to paint some warts on those otherwise gleaming stallions.
How do the hybrid creatures on your carousel embody your exploration of memory and nostalgia? Do you have a favorite creature from the series, and why?
The specific meaning behind any particular creature, with a couple of exceptions, is negligible. That is to say, an alligator didn't necessarily mean something different to me than a puffer fish; it was more a way of just getting started. The text helped to steer some pieces in one direction or another as a narrative device, but the thesis of the work was pretty generalized...mainly that memory can be tricky - that nostalgia often comes with a healthy dose of editorializing and subjectivity.
As far as a favorite creature, they all went through a phase of being my favorite in the moment. But hands-down overall, it would be the first one that I finished. It was a frog head with moose antlers and an ostrich body. I did this one as a test, just to see if anything was there. It feels particularly vulnerable to me, which is maybe why it's my favorite. I kept this one for myself, just to have a reminder of the roots of the project.
Your work often critiques the way we idealize the past. How does the concept of the brass ring fit into this exploration?
The past is clearly different for everyone, so I can't really speak to individual experience other than my own. I am alarmed, however, at the use of a general idealized past as a political tool in today's discourse. The "greatness" of days gone by that politicians throw around may seem harmless to some, but history tells us otherwise.
As for the brass ring...in carousels of the past, there would be a protruding arm stocked with brass rings just outside the orbit of the riders. If one reached out at just the right time and managed to grab a ring, they would win a free ride. As a symbol, it's an elusive moment of greatness we all search for - and in this carousel it comes at a great risk. The ring itself is dangling at the tip of a scorpion tail, which should be enough to make a rider think twice about reaching for it, but reach they will. It's like the story of the frog and the scorpion, where a scorpion asks a frog if he can carry him across a river, since he cannot swim. The frog is naturally skeptical, thinking that the scorpion will surely sting him as they make their way across. The scorpion argues that it would be foolish for him to do so, for then they both would drown. The frog agrees, but sure enough, as they are halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog. As they both sink into the river, the frog asks why the scorpion has stung him. "I can't help it, it's in my nature," replies the scorpion. I was thinking about the countless times in history when we have reached out for personal gain, despite the knowledge that it may be to our detriment. This ties into the subjectivity and whitewashing of truth that happens when we idealize the past.
What role does humor play in your approach to painting these hybrid creatures and satirical narratives?
I had never really embraced narrative in my work, so I didn't have much to go by. I like to think I can be a funny guy sometimes, and to have that come through in my art for once is pretty refreshing. After the aforementioned dumpster fire grad school critique, I switched off completely and began making incredibly serious yet generic abstract paintings. It's not that this was particularly satisfying for me, but I reveled in the defiant Modernist stance that I could take to confound my peers during the course of the program. (Not the best use of a short two years while paying a boatload of money...) In any case, I'm older now and maybe I feel more comfortable telling stories and getting the occasional smile from a viewer.
How does your background as a printmaker influence your painting practice today? Are there any techniques or philosophies from printmaking that you’ve carried over into this series?
I used to tell my students that printmakers live in a mental space that most other artists do not. The mindset of a printmaker is that nothing is out of reach, there is nothing that can't be taken apart and put back together however you decide it should be. I think that the biggest takeaway from my days as a printmaker would be the malleability that I associate with imagery. The permission to borrow and steal from the world around us is implicit, so whether you are making an etching, screen print, painting or sculpture, this mindset prevails. So keeping that in mind, it’s not such a stretch to create hybrid stitched-together mascots for an imaginary carnival ride…
The fantastical creatures in your series could be seen as playful, grotesque, or even unsettling. How do you balance these emotions in your work?
I don't set out to steer a painting emotionally one way or another, but sometimes it happens. The "Weapons" painting is a response to America's maddening reluctance to enact meaningful gun control laws. That one is the first time that all of the segments of the creature had a specific reference. The axolotl head felt like a child, the bird of paradise had rainbow pride wings…two demographics that have been victims of mass shootings in recent years…and the rattlesnake echoed the Gadsden flag (“don’t tread on me”) that has unfortunately become synonymous with right wing causes and hate groups.
This specificity may become more prevalent in future series, but for the most part, "Menagerie" is fairly open-ended. I build these creatures out of different parts in order to disrupt an easy read, but the emotions that they evoke can't really be predicted or controlled.
Your move from New York City to Raleigh, NC, marked a turning point in your artistic journey. How has this change in environment influenced your creative practice and perspective?
I lived in New York City for more than twenty years. In that time, I met and collaborated intimately with hundreds of renowned artists as a Master Printer. I was witness to the exhibits and shifts in aesthetics that defined the early part of the 21st century in contemporary art. This period of my life was beyond my wildest dreams, having grown up in suburban Ohio and only read about these artists in books.
Moving to North Carolina was a big shift, but I think it was good for me in terms of my artistic development. I was around art and artists every day in New York, but I had been unable to create anything of my own, free from that influence, for more than a decade. There were a lot of distractions that I fully embraced at the time, but now that they are largely absent, I have more focus and confidence in my personal vision and growth as an artist.
What’s next for you as an artist? Are there any new themes or projects you’re excited to explore after this series?
I’m working on a new series of paintings - interpretations of print advertising from the 1940s and 50s, that happen to include carousel imagery. In this case, the ads use the carousel as a signifier of happiness and innocence to sell products. Mostly there is no clear connection between the two, which adds to the absurdity of the situation. I'm enjoying where these are taking me - I have quite a few more in the queue, so they should keep me busy for a while.