shown as installed at Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, MA

shown as installed at Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, MA

a dictionary with all text definitions cut out and crumpled, leaving only images

shown as installed at Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, MA

shown installed 1' from the floor at Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, MA

Awarded "Best in Show" by Joseph Thompson, Director, MASS MoCA, at Cambridge Art Association's 2012 BLUE show.

“This land is your my land, this land is my land...” Of course we were here first and it’s our inalienable right of, you know, Finders Keepers. And it’s not like we are bordering on paranoia... it’s just that we don’t create the problems... and it’s not like we are the ones who are different... and that word... ‘alien’... but... I say we should be kinder... let’s be gentler... no need to fortify the fences, nor buttress the barricades, forget the burdensome obstacles... we’ll just welcome with Open Arms.

Oh, what tales we tell. The gratifying languages of Dior, Armani, Vuitton, and Bean always tagged to our tongues... with the seasonally repeating stories of the Retale Ass.

Placebo, by definition, can either be "a substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient’s expectation to get well" or "something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another." Just as magnetic yellow ribbons do little to acknowledge the true horrors, losses or costs of war, placebow acts as a substitute, questioning symbols as adequate stand-ins for the inhumane follies of war and portraying this feel-good symbol as a vicious cycle of self-satisfaction.

Steel pins tipped in red form the red stripes of the American flag. Fear Itself refers to the prickling undercurrent of fear associated with many areas of contemporary society. In rigid formation and pointed directly at the viewer, the blood-red pins against a solemn black shroud form a funereal graveyard, losing the pageantry normally associated with "Old Glory" and underscoring a more somber note of lost ideals. As the viewer moves past, the disappearing visual effect of the red color field speaks to issues of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as abstractions rendered lost or disappearing.

The wing-tipped shoes allude to hopes and ambitions, aspirations and the dreams of self with rights assumed to be inalienable. The artificial grass inserts and the long staking nails, acknowledge issues of grounding and immobility. This Land Is Your Land is a nod to the folly of ownership. While admitting to the whim and frolic of all that one wishes to be... it counterpoints, that in the end, one can only lay claim to the ground upon which one is currently standing and the stake in one’s convictions.