Song number 6
Carbon, Bone Char, Earth Pigments and resin on Panel
45” x 70”
2019
Song Number 4
Bone Char, Earth Pigments, Carbon and Resin on Panel
49” x 91”
2019
The Last Cut is the Deepest
Burnt Silk, Hair and Diesel Fuel on Black Mirror
2017
My mother, an immigrant from Panama, lived and died in a state run institution in South Los Angeles for the last 15 years of her life. I gave her a final haircut, gathered and soaked the hair in diesel fuel, placed it onto raw silk and set it on fire, producing a long, slow, burn. This composition was then stretched over a black mirror. This work is a painting of emancipation.
Poor
2017
Bone Char, and Lactose on Paper
Citizens
2018
Ceramic bound in Translucent Silk on Blackened Oak Form
2018
Carbon, Bone Char, Graphite and Resin on Panel
Field Without Color in Disassembly
2014
Resin, Carbon, Bone Char on Silk torn from Panel
Field Without Color
Bone Char and Graphite on Panel, bound in Silk
41”x53”
2015
Decor en Carbon:The Fifth Column
Installation
2014
This installation is primarily a series of paintings that were titled Field without Color. The works were made from layers of carbon in the forms of Graphite, Bone Char, and Smog burnished onto panel, and bound in translucent black silk. They were installed in a ground floor Chelsea gallery space surrounded by tropical palms which had no natural light source, and whose bases and soil were bound in black silk. The trees died throughout the course of the exhibition, and the works began to lightly shed their skin/pigment into the silk that they were bound by.
Erasing the Music
Erased Sound on Glass Panel
BE OBLIVION, in disconnect
2011
Warm White Neon, Pallets, Paint, Cardboard boxes
Dimensions Variable
BE OBLIVION was constructed with warm white neon letters which were then placed into boxes and onto white washed shipping pallets. This work were sold with an agreement that the collector would have to decide whether to leave the artist’s intervention, or to install it onto a wall, at which point they could not place it back into its original form.
Untitled, Hits with Bibles
Carbon, Bibles and Silk over Panel
2013
Hits with Bricks, and Hits with Bibles were made simultaneously. I burnished bricks with industrial carbon/smog and threw them into raw silk to form the composition. The brick became a metaphor for when language is no longer useful during political discourse such as an overthrow or riot (this was during Arab Spring).
Untitled, Hits with Bibles
Carbon, Bibles and Silk over Panel
2013
While I was producing the Hits with Bricks works, Occupy protesters in San Francisco (where I was working) had an altercation with Police where they threw bricks from windows of an abandoned hotel, and also bibles that had been left behind. I then gathered discarded bibles and burnished them in the same carbon, producing sister works, Hits with Bibles. The objects become emptied out of their meaning, producing a new context, subject and form.
Hits with Brick and Hits with Bibles
Installation View, Roberts Projects
2014
Detail from Self Contained
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
2010
A series of tastes which included salty, bitter, numbing and sweet were produced in collaborations with chefs who ran illegal supper clubs in the Chicago area. At times it was a free restaurant, a lecture hall and gathering space for food activists, a group talk led by local farmers, an ice cream stand, film screening location, and a sculptural installation. The seating for these events was made from citrus farm detritus that I had imported along with myself, from California, A series of hand screened artist books were also available to read within a library within the installation.
Self Contained
2010
Installation at the MCA Chicago
Self Contained was an exhibition that occurred on ground floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. An Orangerie was all at once taken apart and created. Orangeries are ornamental citrus gardens which hold a similar history to that of Museums, in that they were designed for the wealthy to display and maintain their acquisitions. The most notable Orangerie, at Versailles was once seized by Communists and turned into a munitions shelter; The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, was once a munitions shelter for the national guard.
Detail from Self Contained, MCA
Detail from Self Contained
Installation at the MCA Chicago
Project Grow
Project Grow
2006-Ongoing
Project Grow was an arts atelier and urban farm that I founded on the site of a former brown zone (toxic lot) and sweat shop style factory where adults with disabilities were working. We launched a 15 share bicycle delivered CSA and Urban Farm on 2 Acres over 4 lots of inner City land in Portland, Oregon. Project Grow housed 30 therapy chickens, 2 goats, and several ducks along with growing organic produce and having a large arts atelier. There was a textile studio where fur from the goats was woven and turned into art works, a painting studio, ceramics studio etc. Artists involved with the program exhibited and sold work, and farmers earned a market wage for co-operating the farm. I initiated this project and it has since taken many forms, with many collaborators, authors and participants over the past ten years.