Portfolio
Windows, Hinges, Written-Off Friends
2020, 144 x 144 x 72”, Printed film stills on birch plywood panels suspended with nylon rope, pulley system and wood cleat, bent drywall platform
An installation merging geometric abstraction with film-scapes, Windows, Hinges, Written-Off Friends is a series of pentagonal-shaped panels covered with 16mm film stills and found images of select horizon lines that are tied together to create the net of fragmented platonic solids.
A platform-turned-infinity wall frames and re-emphasizes the representation of the horizon line as something and somewhere static—it exists only as a viewpoint, never as a destination or an endpoint. The role of photographed landscapes conflicts the role of the infinity wall to conceptually explore destinations out of reach.
Windows, Hinges, Written-Off Friends
2020, 144 x 144 x 72”, Printed film stills on birch plywood panels suspended with nylon rope, pulley system and wood cleat, bent drywall platform
Detail.
Windows, Hinges, Written-Off Friends
2020, 144 x 144 x 72”, Printed film stills on birch plywood panels suspended with nylon rope, pulley system and wood cleat, bent drywall platform
Detail.
(The Dramatic Universe) Or The Well-Known Stranger.
Installation View: A Primal One, Lost to Narrative Anthony Greaney, Somerville, MA, 2022.
The pieces making up the Dramatic Universe are oddly shaped and peculiarly put together. Eschewing the rectilinear, the works present an expanded use of collage, wherein paint, sandpaper and press-type simultaneously decorate and distress a series of found images whose references point historically backward while forecasting the future like some disheveled weatherman. Each individual composition displays a constellation of images that generate a multiplicity of readings, from hippie dreams of the past to fashion crisis of the present. A body of work that merges collage based works on paper with objects that push the relationship between furniture and pedestal. Made over a span of three years, the collages take on a sculptural component in both their shape and display. The images have been pulled from daily print news, contemporary design magazines and historical printed material such as primary school books, LIFE Magazine and more.
(The Dramatic Universe) Or The Well-Known Stranger.
Detail: A Primal One, Lost to Narrative Anthony Greaney, Somerville, MA, 2022.
(The Dramatic Universe) Or The Well-Known Stranger.
A Gothic Mask of Duty. Colored Pencil, spray paint, newsprint, magazine pages on cut paper. 15x11”. 2021.
(The Dramatic Universe) Or The Well-Known Stranger.
Bore ‘em at the Forum w/Table Paper Collage, Pine, Maple, Museum Wax. 37x24x11.25”. 2021.
(The Dramatic Universe) Or The Well-Known Stranger.
Detail: Bore ‘em at the Forum w/Table Paper Collage, Pine, Maple, Museum Wax. 37x24x11.25”. 2021.
No Jets III and Full of Stars (The Spectre)
2014. Vinyl record, powdered graphite. Installation View
The Spectre was created as a response to Matt Hanner’s audio verite recording No Jets, recorded in Chicago on September 11/12, 2001. Hanner (d.2011) lived below an O’Hare Airport flight path and was able to capture, in the ensuing hours after the cancellation of air travel, the “sound of no jets” on an otherwise busy Illinois air traffic route. The Spectre includes the film The Bower and Hanner’s vinyl record No Jets (packaged by Academy Records) plus the wall drawing entitled Full of Stars. It was created as a visual abstracted presence to focus on while listening to the heavy sound of absence captured on the No Jets vinyl record. Commissioned for the 2014 Whitney Biennial, NY
Head
2013, Wood, Acrylic paint, lighting gels, performances
Note: Installation and performance view at Actual Size, LA, CA.
Taking inspiration from music performances on 1960’s and 1970’s variety shows, HEAD (devices I) took the gallery space of Actual Size and turned it into a make-shift television studio. The imagery was based on existing Academy Records design motifs and color palettes while offering up a background wall of 18% grey. There were a series of lights with RGB gels directly opposite the performance space to be used during the performances. The exhibition ran for 6 weeks in the fall and hosted 2 nights of variety shows. 1 night was organized by the Actual Size gallery staff and the other by Los Angeles musician Bryan Brown. Each performer could set up however they wished in the performance space and each night was recorded digitally. The resultant videos were then available via the galleries website and here on Academy Records site.
Head
2013, Wood, Acrylic paint, lighting gels, performances
Note: performance view at Actual Size, LA, CA.
Head
2014, Wood, DVD, Monitor, Headphones
Display furniture created specifically to present edited performances from the 2 nights of curated shows from HEAD at Actual Size in Los Angeles, CA. The visual motif from the stage set was carried over to the pedestal and picks up on other Academy Records use of the graphic motif in projects like The Spectre and Gilded Splinters.
Gilded Splinters developed from the Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO) collection of religious icons and artifacts. The small gallery space is filled with large ornate gilded frames which feature artwork culled from a selection of eras and styles but with a religious tenor. The aspects of gilding, design details and scale informed what was to become the installation Gilded Splinters. A design layout that inhibits direct movement through the space while forcing the gallery goer to mingle longer within the hundreds of terra cotta gilded splinters rising from the gallery floor. The opposing graphic elements of powdered graphite at each end of the floor pattern were scaled to match the opposing galleries featured religious items and provide an abstracted presence on which to focus.
Gilded Splinters
Terra Cotta, Gold Leaf, Powdered Graphite. 2014.
Installation View
Gilded Splinters developed from the Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO) collection of religious icons and artifacts. The small gallery space is filled with large ornate gilded frames which feature artwork culled from a selection of eras and styles but with a religious tenor. The aspects of gilding, design details and scale informed what was to become the installation Gilded Splinters. A design layout that inhibits direct movement through the space while forcing the gallery goer to mingle longer within the hundreds of terra cotta gilded splinters rising from the gallery floor. The opposing graphic elements of powdered graphite at each end of the floor pattern were scaled to match the opposing galleries featured religious items and provide an abstracted presence on which to focus.
Gilded Splinters
Terra Cotta, Gold Leaf, Powdered Graphite. 2014.
Installation View
Blood of the Sun
2016 16mm color film w/sound, cedar deck, pickling stain, wood bleach. Installation view
Blood of the Sun is a video-sculptural installation exploring architectural and historical archetypes of New England and its industrial past. Installed in deCordova Museum’s black-box media gallery, the installation included a looped 16mm color film of a hand playing a single chord on a Hammond organ (transferred to digital) above a wall-to-wall cedar deck/floor white-washed with the silhouette of a whaling boat.
Blood of the Sun’s inspiration comes from the story of Owen Coffin, a young sailer who’s fate is tied to the Essex, a storied whaling ship from New England. The piece existing as an ode, uses film, sound and sculpture to explore regional forms, materials and myths surrounding shipbuilding, whaling and personal narratives. Blood of the Sun was commissioned by deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum for The 2016 New England Biennial of Art.
Echoes of the Timbaler
2018. Approx: 9x20’. Light installation of lighting gels with video projection
Echoes of the Timbaler uses theatrical lighting and video projection to cast a white silhouette of the town’s local monument onto the gallery wall. Installed in the El Bruc Community Center, the red, green and blue lights converge to create a white pattern on the wall in the silhouette of the monument celebrating the regions myth and history. The legend of the young drummer, or timbaler, fills the mountainous region of El Bruc, Spain. A statue in his honor adorns the town center, where, it is told, the lone timbaler’s drumbeats echoed throughout the mountains like the sound of so many muskets to frighten away Napoleon's hoards. Suggesting the timbaler lives on as a saintly apparition, Academy Record’s light installation was installed in a one night only group exhibition/event organized by Can Serrat residents and staff in addition to local el Bruc townsfolk in Spain.
Healthy Colours
Lighting gels, overhead projector, cardstock. Installation view. 2017
Healthy Colours, title taken from the Fripp and Eno song of the same name, explores color relationships as they relate to the RGB spectrum. Using analog equipment and custom cut gels the graphic pattern is projected onto a scrim in the gallery wall activating the space between projector and scrim. This work expands earlier Academy Records graphic mural work as seen in projects like The Spectre, Gilded Splinters, Variety Show and HEAD.
Wires (Variety Show)
Lighting gels, overhead projector, cardstock template. Installation view. 2013
Wires was created as a backdrop for a series of performances organized by Academy Records for the Swimming Pool Project space in Chicago. The performance space was in a bustling neighborhood with much street traffic and overhead city infrastructure. This visual motif of electrical wires was a slight nod to the name of the exhibition space and a wink to the performers and audience that the evenings performers would be activating the less used backspace of the gallery backlot. This work builds on Academy Records graphic mural work as seen in projects like The Spectre, Gilded Splinters, and HEAD.
Parade Banner
Pine, Duct canvas, Enamel Paint, 9’x11’. 2009.
Out on the Weekend (The Taking of Leisure Mountain)
2007. Salvaged lawn chairs, hardware, performance. Collaboration with SIMPARCH and Chris Vorhees. Performance View: Depauw Biennial, Depauw University, Greencastle, IN.
Out On the Weekend: The Taking of Leisure Mountain was a sculptural installation, performance and live radio broadcast. Students at Depauw University participated in the performance on April 21, 2007 and it was broadcast on WGRE, the campus radio station. The structure stood for several months. Leisure Mountain reflected cycles of consumption, season and landscape, and the performance examined leisure time, labor movements and pioneering spirit. The culmination of the project all chairs were compacted down at a recycle center into an edition of 3 bricks. The plynth contained 2D works, a poster and a CDr of the performance.