Memory Transmitter (Armor Studies) 40”x30”, Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 2019.

Old Ghosts, City Spirits, and Fun in The Rain.

March 02, 2019

I had the opportunity to show new work at Black Serum in San Francisco’s Mission District recently as curated by a long time colleague and friend. The above painting was one of the pieces I had on display with the show. The last month and half has also seen the creation of a new mural at Littlefield NYC, a trip to North Carolina for personal familial reasons, work on a continuing commissioned installation in Oakland’s Jack London Square, and some headway on future endeavors for the next year to come. Of all of this, the most pressing and demanding has definitely been being back in North Carolina helping with some issues back home. While there is no need to illustrate the realities of age and time in words here, there is a need to step forward in life to make sure that I am present and always ready to put my self aside to be there for those I love. I have nothing but faith that within this action of compassion and purpose all of those things I seek to achieve and create will come to fruition in ways better than I could have imagined. And should they not end up becoming a reality, well then the elements of life that arise from their exit will no doubt be an even more fitting part of the path, as they have proved to be time and time again in the past.

Always Beautiful in the North Carolina Sun

Ceremonies, fire, ritual, collective growth, anxiety, love, passion, thought, manifestation of ideas, and life as it comes to us are all aspects of being that channel their way into my work of late. Time has also been something I have tried to embrace as it is lately. The moments I can invest in the nail biting energy of hard work are not the only passings of time. The steady inner adjustment to the march of time and my abilities and limitations there in have also been in the forefront, seeking to be grateful and helpful despite sometimes feeling powerless and dark. Everything is everything.

North Carolina Posters are Pretty Aweseome after all

Currently Installation Commission in Progress

Pay Attention to the View

January 22, 2019

I am sitting in Raleigh, NC, on a visit home right now reflecting on the world, life, home, how I got here, and also simple things like how much I dig the new True Detective season with Mahershala Ali, the fact that soda water is the truest refresher there is, and why North Carolina BBQ is so damn good. So many things have been moving through my mind of late. Two projects currently under way in the Bay Area, a huge mural coming up in LA through a Dept. of Cultural Affairs grant, wanting to be in LA more to spend time learning from my mentor there, so many exhibition ideas that have been in the mind’s eye for years starting to become actual possibilities in this reality, there is more.

The Power of Certainty, Painting on Wood Panel, 40”x30”, 2019

Bill Dunleavy, co-founder of Superchief Gallery and Director of Superchief Gallery Los Angeles and myself at the Parker Day opening in Los Angeles, CA.

What happens when we decide to show up for family in times of age and growth, how do we move from a life of 12 years in one place into the next phase of our development. Do our intentions and true direction in life often or always take use where we need to be despite what might seem logical in a mine field of late capitalism, societal structures, and broken status quo idealism? Is it that simple pure energy inside that isn’t about feeling good all the time or convenience or efficiency for the sake of investors, but about truly living, exploring what we have at our fingertips with the bodies and minds we were created in and with, that is our vehicle for truly finding what lays beyond systems of servitude to things that don’e elevate us? I feel alive.

Eating Blintzes with my friend in Alameda, CA

Plain and simple, I feel alive. I am excited about life’s challenges, failures, and successes. I am mostly excited about the fact that through it all we learn, we grow, we become better versions of ourselves if we are willing to embrace the energy that is readily supplied us. I first time in a while feel optimistic despite how fucked up our nation is, as it is doing a sort of final vomit of so much poison that it is inside. Maybe not a final vomit, nothing is final, but something, some tearing and some ripping is happening, and from it comes a new way.

Current detail of an installation commission in progress in a new Apartment Building in Oakland, CA>

I prayed and meditated and accepted and received the energy of the blood moon the other night. It filled me with a sudden awakened moment of remembering, that energy of choice, to let it fill me and guide me and be the path is always real and always there. So I say work for it, work to stay in it, filled with it, work to go and keep it unfolding and see what sorts of amazing things we can create, share, communicate, love, and find form and formless purity within.

So to all this I say, in a more brass tacks kind of way, there is a lot being made and thought out right now. The response to aging and to the worlds ceaseless suffering and infatuation with it has me moving the opposite direction. There are projects, shows, and even some new endeavors in the works. Reprinting my zine Anime Mixtape again soon, getting ready to keep cranking out some new large paintings and assemblages of smaller works exploring armor, the psyche, patterns, ritual, personal and geographic history as a means of identifying our own multi faceted portraits of existence. The gears keep turning and I am also super grateful to be surrounded in a larger international sense, by a community of amazing creatives and people that support and drive each other to keep reinventing and riding our waves. Lastly i will say, I have some work in a small group show coming up from a long time friend and curator who I am honored always to work with in San Francisco. More to come on that soon… thanks for stopping by.

Portrait of Me at Waffle House in Durham NC, Shot by my brother Parker.

Photos

August 01, 2018

Just met up with a local SF Artist and rad dude named Matthew Badja at Flywheel in the Haight. Much of his practice consists of Photography and some really cool social practice, street installation work. Anywho, I feel inspired myself to post some photos for you gals guys and gender benders. I hope you enjoy. Please contact me if you would like to have prints of any of these.

Portrait of Musician Julie Moon in the MIlls College Bathroom

Photoshoot with Mackenzie James in Tenderloin Neighborhood Building Basement, SF

Mutsumasa Hakozaki, Artists Studio in Kyoto, Japan

Superchief New York Giant Group Show X Juxtapoz Issue Release Party

March 08, 2018

I am at the airport right now headed to NYC. When I booked this ticket it was for my partner's birthday and also to peep some of the Armory show, BUT, BOOM, Superchief is also having a massive group show and a Juxtapoz issue release party one night after the other starting tomorrow, Friday 03/09/2018! The Saturday 03/10/2018 is the official show opening! Going to be nuts. I have been working with these guys since 2013 and I have to say, they are the future of so much that is art in the US and abroad. We are a movement, a community, a powerhouse of ideas and forward motion and insanity and I am so grateful to have been a part for over 5 years now. We are living in strange times and they continue to carry a torch through the darkness, with a huge squad to support that fire.

Please feel free to copy and paste this flyer and post.

Superchief NY is located at 1628 Jefferson Ave, Ridgewood, NY 11385,

Their website is http://superchiefgallery.com

The pieces I will be showing are below. I can't wait to get to the clubhouse.

Hadouken, 9'x4', Painting on Found Wood Panel, 2017, $7000

I painted the piece above, Hadouken, on a trip to NYC last year during a period of immense travel. It was one of my favorite moments of the 2017 and I am really happy to unveil it officially!

Been Grimm, 16"x22", Painting on Paper, 2017, $800

And this piece from my older show in Chelsea in 2015, From Here is also going to be up and broadcasting live...

Moment of Realization, 22"x22", Painting on Wood Panel, 2015 $800

Enigma

February 27, 2018

A power that thrusts and receives,

A time breaking fervor of sight,

The transponder to the universe clear and yet indecipherable,

We move forward out of practicality yet knowing the reasons for our motion are beyond us,

Convincing ourselves we understand it all, yet simply knowing deep within that once we stop existing deep within, once that channel is cut, what are we but nothingness,

A prayer for the power to receive and give in accordance, to give and thus receive without expectation,

Wrought in a world of expectation singing the siren song of know it allness,

The song of developed theories of how to manuals,

Yet one thing remains true, we must keep moving, even then that means the cultivation of a stillness existing in pure light churning and vibrating with a bubbling glow of awakening.

Bright on Time, Installation by John Felix Arnold and Koutaro Ooyama, Ebisu, Tokyo, 2013

A Journey.

February 23, 2018

I have been keeping up with a changing world, a changing mind, changing emotions, and a changing landscape of relevance in a faster shifting universe. I haven't had a moment to sit down and focus on a year in review for 2017 and a look for 2018 but I will once I get the chance. Last year was powerful, it saw a shift in intent, practice, identity, purpose, internal demons come the fuel of work and the emergence of new energy for connection, and the scope of what I can accomplish and see in this world. Needless to say it was a year of lessons, it was a year of healing, a year of seeing, a year of discovery, a year of acceptance, and a year of moving forward as I aim to progress horizontally rather than vertically in the soup of humanity. I want to revisit an art form I was once really into, the spoken and written word, and will try to post written material for you as regularly as possible from here on out. I have been thinking in terms of poetry and abstract thought assemblage to inform a narrative with images from my collection of experience so here. goes a first installment. This is about 2017...

Limited Edition.

Nature Grains Scraping the Rapture of Good Sense,

Unloaded Time Clock Inflight Navigation Fiddles,

The Temporal Space against the Clock, to find a portion of Endlessness that Suits me,

Divorced from Self Pity and asking to be removed of Self Seeking Motives,

Drowning in the Light of a Bathed Child,

Nurturing Thought amongst the Incompetence of Ego,

Fly Solo but Always Missing and Loving Partners in the Dramatic Screenplay of Times Embrace,

Kanye West and Hospital Floors Dripping in Fluids of Shakier Times,

The Sun Creeping in Through Windows while Fresh Thoughts of What Can I do rather than What Must I Do begin to swirl with a Reckoning of Spirit through my Blood,

Old Man Logan Ain't Coming Round Here No More, But He is Never Really Gone,

A Love Found in Freedom and Movement Parallel to none Before,

Solace Found in Smells and Sizzles of Mixed Chopped Salty Goodness,

Solace Found in the Flesh of I Just Met You and our Magnetism is Made for Right Now,

Solace Found in the Laughs and Smiles and Glimmers of those Perfect Moments Set Free from Time's U-Lock,

A Vehicle for Growth Finds it's Transitory Ticket Holder Whose Roots are Strong Enough to be torn up yet never forget the Soil They Come From,

I just Want to find the Best Plate of Stewed Pork Leg so I can Give it Another Wanderer Whose Purpose is so Clear.

Thailand : Beyond Definition : Heat, Spice, Spirits, and Energy.

September 09, 2017

I am writing this while in a bungalo at my new friend Kemistry's house about an hour and a half outside of Bangkok in Thailand. I arrived in country two days ago after a bizarre and exhaustingly surreal layover in the outskirts of Beijing, China. I finally arrived to Bangkok and as we descended into the dark thick cloud cover and were engulfed in the dark pulsing green landscape of rice patties and grass I immediately took a deep breath as the power and intense of energy of this place became apparent to me. My first steps in Bangkok were full of more sensory input than I could have ever imagined. This place is a living breathing organism of chaos and total beauty in every way. Rather than go on and on about it I will show a picture a narrative of some of the aspects so far. I just edited a few images thus far so this in no way encapsulates even a fraction of the last couple days, but will definitely immerse you in the journey.