Studio Work > Weapons of Mass Deception (2000-2008)

New World Odor
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2008
Targets of Opportunity
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2008
New Way Forward
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2008
The Surge
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2007
Think Tank
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2007
Last Throes
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2007
Peace Talks 1
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2003
Peace Talks 2
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2003
Peace Talks 3 (Let's Roll)
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2003
Peace Talks 3 (detail)
Multi-block relief pint
17 x 20 inches
2003
Blunder Lizard
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2005
Tyrannosaurus Rumsfeld
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2005
Condoleeza Rex
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2005
Fossil Fool
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2005
WoMD (Oily)
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2006
WoMD (So Nice Doing Business with You)
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2006
WWJD (Who Would Jesus Bomb?)
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2006
WoMD (Support Our Troops)
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2006
Foreign Policy (Domehead)
Multi-block relief pint
18 x 15 inches
2002
Foreign Policy (Red Right Hand)
Multi-block relief pint
18 x 15 inches
2002
Foreign Policy (Cowboy)
Multi-block relief pint
18 x 15 inches
2002
Foreign Policy (Shellhead)
Multi-block relief pint
18 x 15 inches
2002
Corporate Giant
Multi-block relief pint
18 x 15 inches
2001
Where Wings Take Dream
Multi-block relief pint
20 x 17 inches
2004
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Studio
Assorted linoleum blocks
2007
Abandoned block (McCain)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
10 x 8 inches (approx.)
2007
Abandoned block (Sarah P.)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
10 x 8 inches (approx.)
2007
Abandoned block (Sarah P. cackling)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
10 x 8 inches (approx.)
2008
Abandoned block (Sarah P. screaming)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
10 x 8 inches (approx.)
2008
Abandoned block (Obama upward vision)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
10 x 8 inches (approx.)
2007
Abandoned block (Obama speaks)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
12 x 9 inches
2007
Abandoned block (Obama speaks)
Sharpie on battleship linoleum
12 x 9 inches
2007

Artist's Statement, 2008

My studio practice consists primarily of printmaking, most commonly relief techniques. Individual blocks carved from wood or linoleum are hand-printed, overlapping with one another in order to produce more complex compositions. I am currently working with a collection of over nine hundred images. By employing stencils and masking shapes cut from newsprint, I am able to form nearly limitless relationships between these blocks each time I print.

Though printmaking is defined in part by its ability to produce multiple, unchanging impressions from a fixed matrix, I am more interested in the potential for variation and combinations of imagery. Working in the modular fashion I’ve described above exploits qualities intrinsic to the medium, such as the ability to alter color or composition from impression to impression, in relatively simple ways that can dramatically transform meaning. I am also interested in connecting to the long heritage of woodcuts and screen-printing (among other print processes) in the service of propaganda. As an activist, I deliberately produce images within this conceptual-historical framework.

The content of my recent imagery is overtly political, or to be more precise, political satire. Over the past seven years the presidential administration has designed and implemented a foreign policy platform that bears eerie resemblance to the pulp fantasy of my youth, replete with simplistic heroes, villains, and its own specialized vernacular (weapons of mass destruction, targets of opportunity, freedom fighters, spider holes.) Our elected officials speak in a bombastic rhetoric of “good and evil”, declaring our global neighbors “with us or against us”, our nation’s opposition “wanted dead or alive.” Unsurprisingly, Bush’s agenda (and hyperbole) has elicited harsh scrutiny from the international community. As a conscientious citizen of the United States I am ashamed by this concern and share in their critique.

As a printmaker, my vehicle for protest is obvious. For this series of works - the WoMDs - I have adopted a strategy from the president himself, reducing the vast complexities of global conflicts into flattened, cartoon abstractions.