exhibitions

PREVIOUS ARTIST STATEMENT: 2012

Through exposure to American culture, I have become a consumer, and through my art practice I exist as a producer. Processing cultural experiences through the filter of my own personality is the basis of my work. Andy Warhol once wrote that he was trying to draw a line that was as impersonal as possible, one that gave no hint of the artist's hand - I am interested in the opposite. I embrace the strange characteristics that create my identity and combine them with external influences and make the result exist outside of myself as an art object and concept. Throughout a lifetime of being entertained and educated, I have developed an aesthetic through mood, object and form to give the viewer an artifact.

Prophecy Territory @ RAID with Intuitive Research Society

Prophecy Territories:

As long as there has been civilization, there have been individuals prophesying it’s end. Despite centuries of prophesied doom, the world continues to turn. The reason for the total abandonment of Mayan cities (200 AD - 800 AD) remains unknown by scientists and scholars, yet everyone is certain their calendar end date is important to contemporary society.

Currently natural disasters are on the rise in an environment that was already embracing the apocalypse, what does it mean for people living their lives? Is it right to trust in the moment, rather than the end? Should people not go to work, stop shaving and buy guns? Or should they plant community gardens and barter? Should humans set out for uncharted landscapes hunting the treasures that haunt their dreams? To some the end is a grim and brutal final judgment, to others a new era; a feminine golden age.

This multi-media installation explores the visual language of the latest apocalypse frenzy. Drawing on Mayan imagery and history, Prophecy Territories creates a pleasurable and amusing environment to embrace the end of the world.

video by Wes Johansen

Photos by Molly Shea at Dutch Door

http://blowupyourcar.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/prophecy-territory/
http://raidprojects.com/2012/06/01/prophecy-territory/

Seashore Rococo : A Museum of Beach Ephemera at ArtsCollinwood with Intuitive Research Society

participating artists: Wes Johansen, Vanessa LaValle & Liza Rifkin

By showcasing wear of time and natural patterns created by decay and emphasizing the process of rust, discoloration, and nature reclaiming the metal we explore the passing of time and the culture of Euclid Beach Park.

The beach is a place of relaxation and amusement; the trash of the beach is a memento to ephemeral days spent lounging in the hot sun. We will set up white pedestals on the sand that exhibit handmade beach jewelry and artifacts we create for this event through found objects for this gallery on the shore.

Cleveland has boasted many neighborhood amusement parks, dance halls and thousands of soda fountains during the Golden years. Everyone who lived it loved it, and everyone who didn’t is nostalgic for those good old days. In another 500 years this will be an archaeological site where the future looks to answer our culture.

on some faraway beach at Asterisk Gallery with Intuitive Research Society

Prophecy Territories @ Pink Eye Gallery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgG0tJBof7w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPGoCPWEdno
http://www.pluggedincleveland.com/events/48417/prophecy-territories-the-mayan-adventur.html

dichotomy paradox @ GA/GI 2011 with Intuitive Research Society

In its quest to understand the universe, contemporary science is driven simultaneously towards complexity and simplicity. We work to map and enumerate the myriad forces and entities that compose our world, while seeking beneath them a common ancestor, a unified force, a theory of everything to draw together the disparate threads of physical theory. In this, science is driven by the same intuition that guided the alchemists and philosophers that preceded it: that the multiplicity we observe must be and expression of an underlying unity.
The scientific thought of the past few centuries has prided itself on taking an objective stance wherein the psychic state of the experimenter is irrelevant. However, science springs from a tradition wherein such states were of paramount importance, and has not progressed as far from these beliefs as it would seem. In The Dichotomy Paradox, we have attempted to uncover the subjective dimension of multiplicity and unity, exploring them as both abstract cosmological models and experiential states. For images visit here: