War Zones: 2001- 2003
WAR ZONES STATEMENT
War Zones is a series of paintings about the relation between domestic violence and war. Drawing upon the correlation between violence as an expression of intimidation and destruction and violence as an expression of the urge to create, they reference the political, social and cultural endeavors that celebrate warring states.
Technological advancements that produce weapons of mass destruction also produce superheroes and the fantasy that nature can be dominated and controlled. Spot and Play: Campaign Coat, incorporates an image borrowed from a Samurai warrior costume emblazoned with a picture of Mt. Fuji spewing volcanic rock. It is surrounded by a black and white background of crows and egrets and bordered by patterns appropriated from ecclesiastical robes. Camouflage is represented in the painting to reveal the purposeful imitation of nature – to hide and to exaggerate power. War Zones: 56 is made up of three panels divided into yard-line sections containing a stylized bucolic landscape, a map of Iraq decorated with cluster bombings and football players in combat. They make up a cross-section of the theatre of war, with it’s multiple planes and dimensions. War Zones: The Core is Very Hot gives an over-all picture of the reverberations that are felt when a “hit” takes place.
The imaginative mind turns violence into an aesthetic experience to display the need for passionate engagement with grim reality. Cutting up and retelling is another way of taking charge of a stream of deliriums and the idiotic refuge of dreams.