Thinking with Our Teeth (2012 - present)
Stakes is an image inspired by my interest in animal rights and dissenting view of the widespread practice of factory farming, through which farmed animals are subjected to unimaginably tortuous conditions of confinement, subjugation and slaughter. To describe these massive, industrial projects as “farms” is truly a distortion of the word as we commonly understand it.
This is a composite print made up of more than 50 individual linoleum blocks (the boy, skull, smoke, tractor, etc. are each separate parts, assembled like a puzzle.) Working “flexibly” in this fashion enables me to make relatively simple changes to composition or color that can dramatically alter the narrative or meaning. The stylized imagery and saturated color palette deliberately make reference to the visual language of comic books and other forms of popular culture, with the intent of drawing viewers into a brightly realized, but grisly rendition of our food systems.