Ferguson Statement

Mine is the language of painting, not photography.

For a photographer to do a series of images on Ferguson requires he or she actually be there. For me, a painter, it is not necessary any more than it was necessary for Picasso to be in Guernica when it was bombed. I depend upon my imagination and painterly skills to project my feelings and understandings. Through my brush or whatever painting implement I choose, with my hand, I create images only I am capable of creating that do not correspond directly with what the eye sees but what my particular imagination forms.

In my series "Ferguson" the particulars of the events in Ferguson are subordinated to something more basic and universal. Abstracted images that represent aspects of racial conflict that extend beyond place and country.

Michael Brown's Resurrection

Rising from the flames of his undoing

The long strong arm and mighty fist

Of Michael Brown

Wards off the predatory police

Protestors stream behind him

Demanding justice

A vehicle explodes

Beneath broken lines of communication

Masks shields and guns

Protect the status quo

Through which everything must

Come and go