"An exploration of individuality in urban
culture and community"
Features illustrations and drawings from the artist's unique perspective
- employing a number of mediums, scales and narrative structures to
stimulate both your visual and cerebral cortexes.
Identity Crisis Concept
You hear people say all the time, "I'm finding myself". I only half
agree with that, I think "self" or your own identity is something you
build, not find. And this process of building may never end.
"The individual has always had to struggle
to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you
try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.
But no price is too high to pay for the privilege
of owning yourself." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Oil on Foam core, mixed media
Each panel: 80"x40"
October 25, 2006
This mixed media project is the product of my desperation
in trying to de-construct the environment around me.
Not that I don't fancy the idea of myself running into
walls. There's a saying that states "Everything has already been done". I came to a point where I almost
believed this. I felt overpowered by society and what others have
created, whether it be the art world, any "creative" industry, or even
industries in general, as it also applies to ways of living. We are
exposed to so much and are handed so much. What do we do with all
that? I found myself feeling like everything (laws, rules, music, art,
education, ideas of success, etc.), was overdone, to the point of
being grotesque. I felt like I was going insane because I had the urge
to go around and tear everything apart (e.g. magazines like People and
Vogue and even my own works of art). In this world where everything is
excessively created, one question remains: How do we get past these
overlapping layers to find the essential?
I felt empathetic with the minimalist philosophy.
Although I still wanted to create, I mostly wanted
to attempt to "de-create" what
was over-created. I wanted to strip away something that
was overdone, and, in doing so, to express my frustration
and anger. In this process of de-painting, de-creating
the colors from the painting, the colors stuck to me.
I reckon these colors, components essentially, were
the things that truly mattered because they connected
to me. I have learned that it is in the process of
trying to take away, we are able to find out what we
really need. The remaining components are those things
that matter. They are the essentials, your essentials.
You can personalize them and you take them with you.
Color pencils on paper
12" x 12" panels
July 29, 2006
Price: $ 1800 ($ 200/panel)
An exploration, compilation, deconstruction and reconstruction
process in which I undertook to try and understand
myself, the people in my environment and the society/community
I have come to live in these past few years.
This piece stemmed from my struggle to grasp the insanity
of the pace of life in L.A. L.A., being the big commercial
city it is, exposes us to a fast paced, demand-based
way of living. This can lead to the feeling of being
run over by our own lives. There comes the point where
we're not living life anymore but life is living us.
I felt like I was losing my control and losing the
sense of who I am altogether.
I felt something was wrong with this "busy-ness" of life. There's
almost no room to do what we want to do and to care for what we should
care for. I felt like people were missing and I was missing people.
Despite their proximity, I felt like I was missing their essence.
This demand-based mode of living has the capability of disconnecting
us from others. This disconnection, although obviously physical, can
also be social, emotional and even spiritual. To meet the demands of
this pace, we become very fluid, endlessly compromising and conforming
to survive. Life and identity become more fragile than ever. It
seems like they can be taken away any minute, whether by accident, by
the things we do to help us get by, or by the pressure of the
mainstream that compels us conform in order to be accepted. At the
end, we may even find ourselves disconnected from our "self". We want
to "make it" but we hardly question ourselves: "Make what? Make
where?"
Do we know what it is that truly matters to us? Do
we know who we are anymore?
Pen and ink on Bristol Board
19" x 28" October 22, 2006
Price: $ 1800 ($ 600/ panel)
Some of the constant "trying to understand" subjects in my head:
gender roles, sexuality, and labels. Why is it that my sphere of
action is dictated by my gender? Isn't it unfair to assign people the
same roles just because they happen to be of the same physical build
or the same sex (if you're satisfy with the roles given to you, that
is great)? In many ways, this deprives us of our individuality (same
case with racial roles, cultural roles, etc.).
By the process of labeling, we subject others to confinement.
These confinements are what structure social identity.
People work hard and strive to meet what others see
as acceptable. We have been socialized to be more comfortable
in looking at a man in a business suit or collar shirt
than a man who dances around in ballet shoes. An ideal
woman would wear a nice outing dress to a wedding, not jeans
and t-shirt. But is there anything contradicting in
being a man and wanting to do ballet? Or wearing jeans
and t-shirt over a girly dress?
Gender labels don't just end at defining people in
the two categories of man and woman. I have discovered
that the act of labeling is also found within the subculture
of those who are actually battling for "diversity", those people in between who do not fit the neat
stereotypical gender roles. Sometimes we think it is the mainstream
that is the one assigning labels on the other "alternatives" however,
those who are in the "alternative" circle also put labels on others
and also themselves.
In many of these sub-cultures, who we hang out with
automatically states how we are supposed to act and
live. If we dress one way, we might be labeled a "butch" or a "femme". We are expected to know
certain people, artists, clubs and bands. Many times I wonder how
this confinement is actually promoting the idea of "diversity". It
seems like while people are trying to be "different" they have
enclosed themselves in the "difference". We break free from one
label, but find ourselves sucked into another one.
I have been confronted with straight up questions
like "So, what are
you? Straight, bi, or gay?" And I guess if you are comfortable in
labeling yourself as one or the other – man, woman, straight or gay –
then please do so. It is just a wonder to me why we must label
ourselves by our gender, sex-roles, and sexual preference, since these
are mere components of our complete selves. Why do we need to label
ourselves as anything else rather than ourselves at all? Why do we
feel the need to also label others as such? Labels and roles stretch
beyond the border of gender: they affect expectations of race,
cultures, sub-cultures, age, etc. throughout our society. No matter
what we are, there will always be external expectations for us.
It seems to be human nature to classify and organize ideas, things and
people in order to create tidiness and to facilitate assimilation and
understanding. Hence, people will resort to the use of labels to
categorize and classify who we are. We are often tricked into thinking
that because everyone is labeling, we need to engage in the act of
self-labeling. It is just what everyone has been socialized to do.
To name or label something or someone gives us a sense of familiarity,
some sort of security and power over it the labeled. What we choose
to label ourselves can serve to give us a sense of identity, but
ironically these labels may also become what binds us and limits our
genuine individuality.
Are we compromising ourselves to fit into these labels
in order to be accepted?
Is what we choose to label ourselves all that we really
are?
Pen and color-pencil on newspaper
Panels vary October 23, 2006
Price: $ 650
I was hungry and was trying to find a place to eat
in the middle of nowhere, which was 4067 Pico blvd
in downtown. To me, this event was a perfect reflection
of the insane cultural mix in L.A. and the mass commercial
appeal. We want everything to be compact together in
one place. So there are four different cultures combined
in one little diner that had no more than 5 tables.
