All of the paintings in this show are inspired by a single NASA Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) photo taken of Baghdad on the morning of March 31, 2003. In the photo, areas of vegetation appear red due to the wavelengths used to make the image, which are otherwise invisible to the human eye.
The exquisite and troubling documentary image served as fodder for a wealth of painterly expressions. It represents a split second, drawn out in time and space through months of contemplative work in the studio, where the act of painting and the careful study of the formal qualities of the image shine a different kind of light on the subject, and serve also as back-door opportunities to consider its geo-political and social threads.
This work is provoked by the cathartic and therapeutic desire to turn a cold and detached, hi-tech surveillance image into a series of visceral, formally elegant objects of art. These paintings contemplate the overlapping dualities of abstraction and realism, beauty and repulsiveness, and tradition and innovation, concepts my work has explored for more than a decade.
In the compositions, explosions of saturated colors next to ascetic whites, bare and heavily painted surfaces struggle to coexist. These dynamic movements and fractured geometries evoke the tension and interaction between the natural and anthropomorphic elements of the landscape, where nature meets culture.
Special thanks to Eric Seims and the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1-161 Infantry, 81st Brigade for their sacrifices and for helping me see my work in a new light.