morse-code forest, general stealth and argent armor

“e dot tree dot” by K.I.A. , is 84” x 60”
-black/gold/silver oilstick on scratched and scored aluminum.

Whenever I see a birch forest, the patterns of white and black feel like an encoded message being sent by the earth. So I took a poem by e.e. cummings “when by now and tree by leaf”, translated it into the dots and dashes of Morse code, and overlayed and image of a birch forest with it. I then translated key nouns from the poem (i.e. “snow”) into secretarial shorthand symbols for the cursive part of the painting.

The lines that make up the drawing are more than just decorative or structural -- they are themselves information. (The broader implication: behind everything we see there is a higher, or at least different, order of reality.) They are palimpsests — information layered on information.

General Stealth Car River 84 x 60”, oilstick on aluminum by K.I.A.

Tom Thomson x Emily Carr ÷ General Idea x Agnes Martin = genetically modified Canadian art. Taking the forests of Thomson and splicing them with organic shapes of Carr over the t.v. bands of General Idea, and beneath the minimalist lines of Martin.

There is a horizontal, as well as a vertical, tracking of light as the aluminum reflects with movement and illumination, contrasting the velvety matte of the oilstick.

Argent Silk Armor 84 x 60 x 5"” oilstick on faceted aluminum

A palimpsest— layers of textile shapes from Japan, Africa, Victorian era Europe, and a North American Indigenous breastplate, overlayed. The bends in the aluminum are the folds used on a kimono for storing.

CRISPR SILVR - genetically modified paintings

New work in the CRISPR series of genetically modified (spliced) paintings, “CRISPR SILVR” 50 x 40 x 2”, acrylic on paper on panel. The sculptural painting consists of thousands of discrete slices of paper spliced togethe, with the work shifting and optically changing with the light and angle. See the ongoing series HERE

(The work below is the yang to its yin, same dimensions)

EXHIBITION VIDEO - architectonic auras, unstatic art, wall jewels

Static photos don’t show the work well (nor does seeing the work online, the in-person person experience is much more transformative), so here’s some video walk-throughs… (CONTACT to see IRL)

The works are about ephemerality, instability, transformation and awe… (see web pages for more info)

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L.A. Art Collector: "No There There" acquired

“No There There / No Hear Hear” by K.I.A. as installed a at Los Angeles art collector’s home. 84 x 60” Oilstick on industrial reflective tape on aluminum. (Part of the Transformer series.)

The work is transtemporal (like much of my work) -- there is a complex bas-relief texture of a Victorian petit point motto that reveals beneath the 21st century material. This work fuses the silver palimpsest series, and my linear mandala/DNA spectrogram/sliced collage approach.

The text reads "No Hear Hear, No There There", expanding on the Gertrude Stein quote about unreliable memory and perception of place, and emptiness, to include 'here/now' and not just 'then/there' ('Hear' aurally sounds as 'Here'). The mirror tape is utilized for another layer of the palimpsest, forming an abstracted digitalesque map of Oakland, GS's hometown. (Re: a map is not the territory, never is the actual place, just like memory...)

The reflective quality of the work allows the colors in the room, or the viewer, to resolve/dissolve into the piece. It also creates a shifting or unstable optical appearance as one moves around the work, with the different textures or sections luminescing at different angles or time of day.)

No set Time. No concrete Place. No set Meaning* -- interpretation of the phrase shifts when using a different sense -- one hears "Here" but sees "Hear", so the text can simultaneously be understood as  "No praise, No comfort" (no encouraging claps of "hear, hear" from the crowd, no comforting pats of "there there" from Mom.)

*Final feint: the title of the work is actually "Here Her, There He"