Artist Statement
The art I create is built upon optical characteristics of commercial offset printing that fold metaphors of professional and personal experiences into my printmaking practice. The ramifications of my decision as a white man to step-parent a black son drives me to explore the familial and social responsibilities involved in this choice. Colors, values, separations, positives, negatives, closure, closeness, lightness, whiteness, darkness, blackness and in-betweenness have been constant and ironic parallels to family and my career.
Specifically, the question comes up “Why after divorce did a relationship with a non-biological child continue despite a huge gap of cultural differences and the lack of a genetic bond?” Further, how did that decision challenge my inherited cultural myths about race? Why, in a paradoxical way, do the distances between us bring us closer still? Much like the photomechanical halftone for print reproduction, the value of our relationship becomes more apparent the further we are removed from the elements of sameness. Contrast yields continuous tone.
Thirteen years of parenting, nearly ten of it following divorce, raises regular questions as to why I elected this path. What does this do for me? Why did I take on such a race sensitive cultural challenge? Why would I think I could make a difference? How is he different? How has his cultural makeup been altered because of my influence? How are we similar to the art viewing public regarding his or her coexistence in the racial fabric of American culture? Why is it that the context of our surroundings constantly redefines our relationship in degrees of whiteness or blackness?
The very material choices and construction of these works is intended to support the metaphor for this complicated familial state—to work in service to the idea. With all of these cultural forces at work on me, what can my art do to impact qualities of racially charged encounters had by the audience?
Additional hybrid blending of computer tools from my graphic design background with conventional printmaking media advance this material still. Neither analog nor digital materials alone can represent my relationship with my stepson. As he is not my biological child, the body of work isn’t derived from a traditional pedigree of media. The interrelationship of materials might work on the audience to assist them with notions of mixed influences acting on the subject portrayed. It is my intention to question the viewer’s position, or better, have the viewer question themselves on where they stand on the shifting paradigmatic plates of inherited racial myths.
