ORANGE DUST

photo by Robert Wade

The window installations hold obesity-proportioned caskets made from sugar and plastic on one side, and orange flocked plaster Dorito pyramids on the other, to represent both below and above ground burial chambers.

Within the context of this show, the pyramid serves as a surrogate for the USA. This piece is an invitation to self-destruct.

It’s an object loaded with violent potential. It mimics the shape of the Washington Monument. And its asking you to take a swing - everybody’s doing it.

This piece gets part of its title from a Teddy Roosevelt quote - he spoke often of the disaster that awaited men afraid to work. This is meant as a postcard from the future - a note to say hi, be safe.

These two golden tablets contain all of the available iPhone emoji icons at the time of their creation. It seems devolution is taking place and it’s really fun to participate. Our language is reverting to pictograms.

Autosarcophagy is the act of self-cannibalism. The Egyptian god Anubis, in this instance, is the American, who is eating himself to death and he doesn’t even see it.

This piece is directly inspired by the burial mask of King Tut, but in this instance, the dead pharaoh is you - gazing upon yourself through layers of the past. It represents a history of vanity and entitlement - two great American virtues.

This bottle is filled with sugar and wrapped in the stripes of the flag, mimicking the Coca-Cola label.

‘Hook and Flail’ is a play on the pharaoh’s ‘crook and flail’. The shepherd's crook symbolized the flock of Egypt's people, while the flail was an agricultural tool used to harvest grain.

In this case, the fork and spoon are the American equivalent, and this piece speaks to the American food industry’s ability to addict the public to garbage...and watch us flail, in mock wonder and horror.

The chalice of orange dust here is actual Dorito dust, placed as an offering to the snack food gods.

This piece is meant to evoke a smile, but if one thinks about the implications, maybe it’s not so funny.

This cat is us, with her head so far up she can’t even see what’s going on in the world around her. Or if she does, she doesn’t appear to - her shades help avoid making eye contact.

None of us can tell the future - maybe this glass house, America, is poised to score, to get back on top, to win. Or maybe the kick will shatter it to a thousand pieces. Or maybe we'll score!

These canopic jars contain petroleum, drugs, sugar, and firepower: American viscera.

This Nefertiti is sporting a Marge Simpson hair-do, and she’s our Everywoman, our American Queen of Today. Like so many of us, she’s mesmerized by the TV and the steady stream of infotainment and human atrocity paraded before her in a 24 hour feed.

She can’t stop watching. And neither can we.