STATEMENT
THE SENTIMENT OF MEMORY
I’m redefining how we think about portraiture through my multi media painting installation. I look at portraiture as a series of memories all contained in a single painting illustrating a person who’s influenced others, yet human nature dictates memories will fade over time. My art is about resurrecting the stories of those people who have been forgotten.
In our everyday lives we randomly come across various scents and sounds such as the smell of chalk dust reminding us of an inspirational teacher from grade school or hear a classic song that brings us back to a childhood friend we haven’t thought of in ages. They may have disappeared from our present lives, but are still embedded in our subconscious. My conceptual installation is a mechanism for insight. Enclosed in plexiglass and submerged in seawater my paintings fade into pulp over time. The scents and sounds attached to the installation serve as powerful memory triggers resurrecting the subject’s existence & reaffirming their importance.
My experience working in a Psychiatric hospital as the head mental health counselor exposed me to so many untold stories that needed to be told. These people were going to fade from the public consciousness and so I felt compelled to preserve their stories through my art.
The process is, I paint a portrait of my subject on found wood. I then build a plexiglass container in which to house the wooden portrait. The plexiglass container is filled with seawater that will disintegrate the portrait over a lengthy period of time turning it into pulp wood. Attached to the plexiglass case is a small glass box filled with a scent representative of the subject which could be anything from juicy fruit gum, to musty books, tobacco, or old leather from a motorcycle jacket. Also attached to the plexiglass case is an iPod filled with music and recorded conversation that becomes the soundtrack to the subject’s life.
As in real life our visual memories of even the most important people from our past fade, my portraits also disappear. We are left with only the scents and sounds which serve as powerful memory triggers to remind us of that person’s existence and influence.
There's importance in never forgetting.
RESUME
SOLO SHOWS
O’HANLON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2023 Installation. John Trudell - Mill Valley, CA
WINE KITCHEN GALLERY 2017 Small Stories - San Francisco, CA
FIRST PERSON GALLERY 2016 New Perspective - San Francisco, CA
ELSEWHERE GALLERY 2015 Sentiment Of Memory - Fairfax, CA
SPRING STREET GALLERY 2014 Small Stories - New York, NY
ART WORKS DOWNTOWN GALLERY 2014 Small Stories - San Rafael, CA
GROUP SHOWS
WESSLING GALLERY 2024 San Francisco, CA
O’HANLON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2024. Members Show - Mill Valley, CA
RYAN JAMES GALLERY 2023 Visual Impressions Seattle, WA
BG GALLERY 2023. Monochrome - Los Angeles, CA
O’HANLON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2023. A New Perspective - Mill Valley, CA
O’HANLON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2022. Painting With Pixels - Mill Valley, CA
BG GALLERY 2022 Art Fair, Fort Mason Art Center - San Francisco, CA
O’HANLON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2022 Monochrome - Mill Valley, CA
BG GALLERY 2021. Art Fair - Los Angeles, CA
MVVO GALLERY 2020. The Oculus - New York City
MVVO GALLERY 2019. The Oculus - New York City,
BG GALLERY 2019 Art Fair - LA Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA
MVVO GALLERY 2018 Sotheby’s - New York City, NY
BG GALLERY 2018. Oval - Los Angeles, CA
ART WORKS DOWNTOWN GALLERY 2017. Small Works - San Rafael, CA
ART WORKS DOWNTOWN GALLERY 2016. Still Life - San Rafael, CA
DUTFIELD GALLERY 2014. Portraits - New York, NY
THE COPLEY SOCIETY GALLERY 2012. The Magic Of Oil - Boston, MA
PUBLICATIONS
COLLECTORS' ART BOOK VOL.02 INTERVIEWS WITH ARTISTS. Al-Tiba9 2022
VOLUME 18 2012 ,Studio Visit Magazine