1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Photo installation, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, California, 2015.
Framed gelatin silver and digital C-prints
Scylla and Charybdis were mythological sea creatures that the Homeric hero Odysseus was forced to choose between and sail past in his wanderings. Choosing between "Scylla and Charybdis” has come to mean choosing between two equally unpleasant options.
As an artist, I’m interested in challenging received ideas of beauty and masculinity, frequently looking at subject matter given little prior aesthetic attention. Inspired by the eroticization and fetishization of large hairy men within the gay community, my work grapples with an ideal of beauty quite outside of the mainstream. My photo projects invite the viewer to contemplate new ideas about beauty through a visual engagement with our subliminal and overt anxieties about the body.
At the center of my installation are two photographic grids, each composed of the same 12 black and white images, but arranged in different ways to evoke abstracted versions of the two creatures. The component images are closeup photos of the same large hairy male body.
A third grid, called “Swell” is composed of closeup photos of a man’s long white beard and furry shoulders, the images arranged to echo a tumultuous seascape, and bringing to mind Poseidon, the god of the sea.
Flanking the three grids are large color images of spider webs. The webs are blurry, set against a lurid red background, creating a kind of charged psychological space. Insects wander into spider webs, only to be trapped and devoured. My installation can be seen as a sort of aesthetic trap, the viewer lured into my world, invited to wander through and consider a very different kind of artistic subject matter.
Scylla & Charybdis
Installation view, l-r: Untitled (Spider Web #581), digital C-print, 30" x 45"; Charybdis, framed gelatin silver prints, 47" x 63" installed; Untitled (Spider Web #583), digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #581), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Charybdis, 2003/15
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 47" x 63" installed
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #583), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Installation view, l-r: Untitled (Spider Webs #601, #595, #608), digital C-prints, 30" x 45" each; Scylla, framed gelatin silver prints, 47" x 63" installed; Untitled (Spider Web #605), digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Installation view, l-r: Untitled (Spider Webs #601, #595, #608), digital C-prints, 30" x 45" each
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #601), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #595), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #608), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Scylla, 2003/15
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 47" x 63" installed
Scylla & Charybdis
Installation view, l-r: Untitled (Spider Web #605), digital C-print, 30" x 45"; Swell, framed gelatin silver prints, 47" x 63" installed
Scylla & Charybdis
Untitled (Spider Web #605), 2015
Digital C-print, 30" x 45"
Scylla & Charybdis
Swell, 2003/15
12 framed gelatin silver prints (15" x 15" each), hung one inch apart from each other, 47" x 63" installed