The weird and the eerie stimulate intrigue and send shivers down the spine. They each constitute a ghostly failure of presence — an ungainly and implacable presence unable to belong. In the series Eerie America I explore the transient non-places of everyday happenings or unassuming scenes to focus on these ambiguous subjects. The appropriation and collage of photographs remove the content from its surroundings, laying it bare in isolation from reality. Further mediation of this imagery invokes the transience and liminality into which these spaces disassociate themselves. Lingering on the edge of the image are possibilities, the unknown, presence, and absence. It’s not something to see, but something to experience.
The weird is constituted by a presence — the presence of that which does not belong; the eerie is a failure of absence.
Ricocheting between paintings, drawings, assemblages, and sculptures describes my inescapable frenzied state of making: the mania of now. From Google news feeds, late-night talk show super cuts, trending tweets, and algorithmically manipulated content creators on YouTube or TikTok, we are bombarded with a deluge of simultaneously random and curated content. Rich with excitement, surprise, and even purpose, the information builds and compounds, overloading the senses with some new demonstrative act of everyday violence, the next natural disaster, ineffectual branches of government, or celebrity gossip obsessed with Kim K's newest fit. Appropriating motifs from social media clips, pop culture, and schematics, the series of work asks viewers to interrogate how imagery and information are processed. These psychological infiltrations of technological residue impact our fears, our dreams, and our realities with unimaginably complex methods.
Artist Notes & Sources: This series, initiated in 2022, remains an ongoing project. More work will be coming in 2025 and 2026.
Artwork Photographed by Paden DeVita
Acrylic Paint on Wood Panel
8” x 10” x 1.5”
2022
SOLD
Digital C-Print
24” x 24”
2022
Acrylic Paint on Wood Panel
12” x 14” x 1.5”
2022
SOLD
Digital C-Print
18” x 24”
2022
Acrylic Paint on Wood Panel
3” x 3” x 1.5”
2023
Acrylic Paint on Wood Panel
3” x 3” x 1.5”
2023
Digital C-Print
24” x 24”
2022
Digital C-Print
24” x 24”
2022
Digital C-Print
24” x 24”
2022
Digital C-Print
18” x 24”
2022