['Work' on Paper]
The series ['Work' . . . on Paper] was developed between February 2004 and April 2005 for a solo exhibition at the Slaughterhouse Gallery in Pittsburgh. The works were inspired by my year of service as an AmeriCorps volunteer.
I began to create visual work about work because the experience seemed to be verbally too difficult to describe. While developing visual elements I turned to Studs Terkel's book "Working," which documents firsthand accounts of various professions. In the book, people from every type of job imaginable discuss the autonomy and the humiliations of work.
The overall artistic concepts that emerged from my experiences and my research are twofold. First, work is a huge part of an individual's life that very few others will get to experience and so secondary descriptions will always be severely limiting, and second, work is a game of endurance where the goal is simply to have a part of you remaining after five o'clock. For artists, the game is very real, because what remains is what is used to produce art. It's not simply self preservation, but survival.
The pieces in the series vary greatly in medium and many involve a great deal of experimentation. Many of the works began with a basic background from one of my work experiences. The background would be printed using traditional serigraphy techniques, a certain number would be pulled and subsequent layers would be added to create one limited edition. The remaining backgrounds would be used with experimental techniques and hand painted to create variable editions and one of a kind pieces.
I began to create visual work about work because the experience seemed to be verbally too difficult to describe. While developing visual elements I turned to Studs Terkel's book "Working," which documents firsthand accounts of various professions. In the book, people from every type of job imaginable discuss the autonomy and the humiliations of work.
The overall artistic concepts that emerged from my experiences and my research are twofold. First, work is a huge part of an individual's life that very few others will get to experience and so secondary descriptions will always be severely limiting, and second, work is a game of endurance where the goal is simply to have a part of you remaining after five o'clock. For artists, the game is very real, because what remains is what is used to produce art. It's not simply self preservation, but survival.
The pieces in the series vary greatly in medium and many involve a great deal of experimentation. Many of the works began with a basic background from one of my work experiences. The background would be printed using traditional serigraphy techniques, a certain number would be pulled and subsequent layers would be added to create one limited edition. The remaining backgrounds would be used with experimental techniques and hand painted to create variable editions and one of a kind pieces.
