“This Is Not A Gun”
Artist Statement
Guns are nothing more than hunks of metal highly tuned to transfer kinetic energy between bodies. However it is their potential energy - their symbolic effects - that imbue them with enormous and uncontrollable power.
The hint of a gun generates a symbolic network. The network of fear and the pull of power - all rooted ultimately a desire to take control and to be in control. Guns are not weapons. Guns are the clocks that mark our eternal god-like ends. Guns are god. They are American. They are assumed natural order. They are power. They are misdirection. They are specters and shadows. They are us. Fractured.
The work presented here considers the effects of guns on society, on a shooter, on a victim, on bystanders, on the artist through time. The artist contemplates what is controlled by guns and what is obliterated by guns and what is salvageable. In 3 mediums the work explores guns effects in time, distortion of time, distortion of cause and effect, and on the violation of the inner lives of all of us.