Lost Loves - Forgotten or Abandoned?

My friend Alex Foster is probably gonna end up as the next big shot producer in Hollywood, but once upon a time I made him a piece of artwork for his apartment when he was stuck with me on the East Coast.

I had found a walnut dresser door from a dumpster diving trip in Soho that was in perfect condition since it was being disassembled for the garbage trucks making their rounds. I snatched it up, brushed it off, and got plenty of odd looks on the subway carrying it home.

I wanted to draw some inspiration from my surroundings. Another friend had given me an old James Bond poster so I decided to play with that. I was also handed a flyer on the way home regarding the persecution of Falun Gong, which it didn't know much about, but the flyer included some striking imagery of human suffering that was too much to ignore.

I used a combination of acrylic paint, decoupage, and Sharpie marker. I decided to utilize the classic look of James Bond, which is almost an icon onto itself. I really enjoyed reading Ian Flemming's pulp fiction as a child and the books always resonated with me; political intrigue, foreign locales, bloody violence, beautiful women, and danger the world over. It's only now that I realize the true politics behind certain events and how they affect its citizens.

I really decided to rethink my understanding of James Bond as a character and what he reflects as a society. These elements of espionage and intrigue, but you never truly see the human suffering of the politics behind the curtain. Not much for movie entertainment, but it’s the basis of understanding the reasons and actions that would place a person in such a situation.

For the flesh tone of the tortured souls, it’s just the wood left exposed. I used a stencil for the star to help separate the piece into three distinct pieces as the eye follows downward. The text I wanted to play with and invoke the feel of a movie poster. The bottom half is a reflection of how all of this is treated like a game, where the players don’t even realize they’re the ones being played. The women at the bottom are actually one bondage image I found & printed from the computer of a cartoon fetish model in stockings and a gas mask. Here I meant to address the misogyny of suffering and the stories reported, whether through Hollywood or CNN, particularly in regards to gender.

 

It’s a strong, striking piece which is quite odd to take in and process. Sadly, Alex decided to get rid of the piece when he was moving because the paint started peeling off of the piece which he thought was a defect. It was meant to do this, to fade away and fall apart, adding another element to the painting. I meant to toy with the notion of how we can let suffering fade away as well as forget about the classics of Hollywood. This was definitely a piece of purging things from my brain, even if I didn’t completely understand it myself.

Here's another little side project I ended up giving to giving to a friend. I started this roughly 5 inch sculpture out of scrap copper wiring. The trick was sculpting it so that I would be able to fit it into its base container, but more of that later.

I molded into a rough shape of the figure and just used scrap pieces of plaster of Paris to make this little figure. After it was dry, I began blending out a flesh tone for the creature with acrylic paint. I wanted it to look somewhat humanoid yet alien.

After the acrylic was dry I coated the figure in about 3 coats of epoxy to give it a solid seal. After the seal was dry I placed the figure in a repurposed olive jar (just peeled the label & cleaned off the glue). I made a label for the figure using Microsoft word, printing it out and using spray adhesive on the backing. The project number refers to my birthday, the project name refers to ZERO which used to be my tag name. And if you can’t figure out Area 51, well that’s what Google is for folks.

I added the statue and added water to fill the jar. I knew that the weight of the piece would keep it from floating. I took one drop of white oil paint and added it to the water, giving it an odd swirl effect. After a little bit of time, some of the acrylic began to strip away and hang off like skin and would lightly sway if moved. Unfortunately I don’t know what happened to it in the end as I gave it to a friend who moved away and disappeared.

I definitely would like to try this project again, especially with materials such as latex, metal, and possibly on a much larger scale. But in the end I was quite pleased with it; not bad for something so creepy that still fits on the shelf of your refrigerator.


 I definitely would like to try this project again, especially with materials such as latex, metal, and possibly on a much larger scale. But in the end I was quite pleased with it; not bad for something so creepy that still fits on the shelf of your refrigerator.