Xenogenesis Cycle Series Images \/

Prior to the beginning of 2020, my artwork was very representational. I'd spent the 2010's creating a myriad of expressive, like-like recreations of people and places from the world around me. My various creative remediations of my real-world experiences were comprehensive, diverse, and compelling, albeit limited for one irrefutable reason. This one reason relates back to my second primary goal for the series. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use my representational work to fully express—visually—the plethora of strong emotions swirling around within me as a depressed person dealing with catatonic PTSD and ADHD. The only way I could achieve complete artistic integrity was if I could somehow find some way to FINALLY create work that honestly depicted my inner emotional truth. Thankfully, this creative conundrum was resolved by my discovery of Joan Mitchell’s abstract artwork. Mitchell’s work taught me that by using Abstract Expressionism, any artist with depression and a burning desire to depict their inner emotional truth can create vibrant imagery that dramatically serves both needs. These are the two qualities my old work had lacked. I immediately set to work on the “Xenogenesis Cycle”, an abstract art series purely focused on the usage of intense brushwork and erratic palette knife slashes. This uncontrolled, unfiltered “form” of mark-making visually conveys various facets of my ever-shifting emotional state.

Since the traditional painting techniques and tools had failed to enable me to fully express my inner emotional truth, I was forced to adopt a far more performative painting style to achieve this end. Basically, think of someone dancing with a paintbrush in their hand. I also created innovative new mark-making TOOLS to help me create bolder, more emotional charged brushstrokes. With this series’ focus on intense, intentionally emotive mark-making with palette knives and paint brushes duct-taped to the ends of long sticks.

The only “truth” I can acknowledge is the way I feel on the inside. I want my art to be TRUTHFUL, which is why I want to create a painting series with the set goal of reflecting upon the only thing that feels real and truthful, EMOTIONS. Very few of my portraits and landscapes have ever fully expressed the struggle I have endured to stay positive and sane. Representational art, for all the good that it may do for the world, remains an elaborate form of artifice, depicting a highly filtered version of one’s reality, one’s truth. My new abstract series dispenses with the lies by depicting the world in my head, a chaotic and color-drenched world, undefined and unfettered, by the limitations of form, shadow, or light. I have struggled with catatonic PTSD, depression, and ADHD and for the past 6 years. The strong emotions that I feel as someone struggling with depression and these other mental health issues color the way that I look at the world, thus the color choice of each painting reveal to the viewer something about my emotions. The usage of red pigments indicates feelings of angry, outrage, and frustration. The blacks and blues indicate sadness and disillusionment. Classic emotive color symbolism.

Through the frantic energy of my brushstrokes, I can indirectly influence viewers to see and feel what I felt, emotionally, when making the painting. I sincerely hope that the artwork triggers similarly strong emotions within its viewers so they can better understand my inner emotional truth that I want so badly want to share. As a form of art therapy, the content of “Xenogenesis Cycle” allows me to address my struggles with mental health issues, by providing me with an outlet to constructively reflect on my fears and frustrations in a visual medium without lashing out with cruel words or actions. Ultimately, I hope that the content of the “Xenogenesis Cycle” starts a conversation amongst viewers about mental health.    

THE END