What’s Left

WHAT'S LEFT
Site dependent installation and video

Click on photos at right to enlarge

Many of the issues I have addressed in my art over the years explore fragility, vulnerability, danger, and healing. These themes continue to surface, and I respond to them in the best way I know - through a visual language that takes many forms and shapes, often unexpected and surprising. I have learned to let the work lead me and to embrace the openness of what lies ahead. 

What’s Left, a site-dependent installation, is driven by the same challenges. The result is a non-linear video, which allows imagery and music to flow through the viewer. It mines events and materials of mass culture, creating an alternative world. It goes beyond what we know and asks “what if?”

The blue walls, coated by hand with a mixture of salt and powdered chalk, act as a symbol for healing and preservation. The layering partially hides some of the “scarring” beneath, and reveals it in a new way. The application is meditative, allowing the excess to form a border of “what’s left.”

Repurposed broken glass is also a part of the installation, creating notions of danger, pain, and vulnerability. There is a perverse beauty that emanates from the blue color as light is reflected through the shards. I have brought together these materials to create an environment that transcends boundaries. They become a map of awareness, bringing the past into the present.

“A cry, almost a song, to mourn what has been lost while its memory refuses to depart, and a cry to celebrate what has been left, however little, to infuse it with residues of old knowledge.”

- Ishmael Beah, from Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel