Gasoline, Wood, Metal, Leather, Dried Foliage, and Ceramic Horse Heads.
64” x 60” x 24”
Gasoline, Wood, Metal, Leather, Dried Foliage, and Ceramic Horse Heads.
64” x 60” x 24”
Gasoline, Wood, Metal, Leather, Dried Foliage, and Ceramic Horse Heads.
64” x 60” x 24”
Ink and Watercolor on paper.
7” x 9”
Mahogany, Maple, Steel, Paint, Faux-locs, Leather.
74” x 32” x 64”
Installation photography by Garrett Carroll.
Mahogany and steel.
Steel, Maple, Bicycle Seat.
48” x 32” x 56”
Wood, Metal, Canvas, Paint, Dried Flowers, Southern Comfort.
24” x 16” x 18”
chair legs, plywood, steel, plaster
24” x 30” x 60”
Wood, steel, paper.
18” x 16” x 20”
Wood, clay, and canvas.
6” x 8” x 24”
Wood, steel, stone.
16” x 14” x 18”
Steel, maple, oak, rifle, leather, and dog toy.
60” x 34” x 48”
Steel, maple, oak, rifle, leather, and dog toy.
60” x 34” x 48”
Steel, birch, oak, glass, motors.
48”x48”x74”
Pastel on paper.
30” x 48”
Paint and Pastel on Linen.
42” x 42”
I spent my twenties examining what I know of the story of my father, from his childhood as a renegade youth to his becoming a parent. Over the years it has been told to me in his voice, with a dream-like intensity and devastation. In its whole, the history has become, in my mind, symbolically representative of the pursuit of fame in America.
Dad ran away from home at 12 years old and eventually lived in a combination of houselessness and squatting for nearly a decade in Hollywood. He’s charming, a great singer, has blonde hair down to his butt, and finds a community in the local punk/glam scene. He calls himself “Boy Messiah.”
After running away he was intermittently cared for by his grandma. I’ve learned of some lessons she taught him. How to make thin danish-style pancakes. How to climb a plum tree. The mundane wasn’t enough. He wanted to play and be seen. I remember the solitary “toy” in her house was a saddle-laden stool with a braided leather equestrian whip.
I’ve discovered in my own life the ways desire and independence can spontaneously turn disastrous. There is an emphasis on individual uniqueness and fame linked to the idea of freedom in this country. I have dreams of horses on fire, and the rider (my dad) holding the match. When seated, my father rocks back and forth endlessly, a habit to drown anxiety. He, like many of us, is a rocking horse rider, going nowhere fast.
Rocking -- moving without going anywhere -- is the currrent cornerstone of my thematic and aesthetic thesis. Early this year I set off to make a large rocking horse that is ridable by the adults. Cleo Reed commissioned me to use the horse in their show, CUNTRY, at Recess in Brooklyn. I modified the design to include some of Cleo’s stories of labor and the aesthetic of the Black American Circus. CUNTRY: Always the Horse, Never The Jockey opened its doors March 15th, 2025.