get down wit da mash-up (or- art 2.0)

I had a moment of clarity (few and far between), during one of my geek-fests as I was engorging myself w/as much hip internet content I could feed myself. While most of us on the fringe elements of "normal" society try to shun names for categories and genres I tend to indulge in them. Most of my time spent in the Corcoran I was designated as the "appropriator"; which actually is true, and is also an integral part of the art canon. Yet as finding a completely new direction is getting increasingly more difficult, many are using existing elements as a medium to create something vaguely familiar but still altogether different and fresh. This new (not really new) genre is called "mash-up". While appropriation is still valid I feel that a good part of what I've done falls better under the mash-up category. At this point we're splitting hairs thinner than those found on my father's head (he'll kill me for that one!) Like I said, I like to categorize. If you've ever heard a mash-up of 2 artists music; the most recent and famous example would be Jay-Z and Linkin Park (suprisingly good), then you'll see where I'm going w/ this flimsy diatribe. I'm using everything that comes w/ the elements that I've stolen, combining them to my benefit. At that moment, they become more about what I've sampled, how I've placed them together, and why I have than what they were about originally.

All this has evolved to this point for me naturally. I'm constantly aware of my surroundings almost to a fault. Ask my wife about trying to have a conversation while walking down the street in the city; impossible. She'll be mid sentence about her day and I'll blurt out something about the throw-up on the side of the passing delivery truck. All this ingestion has become who I am as an artist. These are my symbols that I rely on to start and complete my paintings. For the longest time I tried to fight the urge to add these bits into my work for fear that I wouldn't be seen as an individual. Once I gave in and started to pursue this as a direction it became immediately evident that it was my skill, and my work became increasingly stronger for it.

Now I just have to put a cohesive body of work together and show it, instead of me just talking about it.

[IMAGE COMING SOON]