Sitter Response (Audible)

A selection of works created March 3rd through 17th, 2020, in Los Angeles and during a residency in Erie, PA. Made possible with support from Long Road Projects (FL) and Erie Arts and Culture (PA)

A selection of portraits collected of friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and colleagues over shared meals in Los Angeles and Orange County, between 2018 and 2019. Audio clips recorded and used with permission of sitters.

Abdullah as Filtered Through Me, 12 3/4 x 12 1/2 x 3 and 8 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, acrylic, wood, light sensitive sound electronics, handmade aluminum flick trigger disc, 2020

Fredy (with Kusi) as Filtered Through Me, 12 x 12 1/2 x 3″ and 10 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, acrylic, wood, light sensitive sound electronics, handmade aluminum flick trigger disc, 2020

Garbage Man Who Turned on, Tuned in, and Dropped Out, 12 1/8 x 16 1/2 x 3″ and 9 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, acrylic, wood, light sensitive sound electronics, handmade aluminum flick trigger disc, 2020

Deniece as Filtered Through Me, 18 3/4 x 22 x 3″ and 1 min 43 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, wood, acrylic, handmade plastic pull tab, and sound electronics, 2020

Jackson as Filtered Through Me, 13 1/2 x 11 x 3I and 48 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, wood, acrylic, handmade plastic pull tab, and sound electronics, 2020

My/”Hypothetical Horror” as Filtered Through Me, 16 1/4 x 17 1/2 x 3″ and 7 sec, pigment ink on acid free paper, wood, acrylic, handmade plastic pull tab, and sound electronics, 2020

Podcast Duo (Danny and Patrick) as Filtered Through Me, 12 1/2 x 16 1/4 x 3″ and 10 seconds, pigment ink on acid free paper, acrylic, wood, light sensitive sound electronics, handmade aluminum flick trigger disc, 2020

Pancakes at Her Pick (with Connie Trevino), 12 3/4 x 9 x 2 1/2″ and 47 seconds, pigment ink and acid free tape on acid free paper with motion activated sound electronics, 2019

Quickly Before Bed as Mom and Dad Read (With Lorna Sikorski), 13 x 9 x 2 1/2″ and 1 second, pigment ink and acid free tape on acid free paper with push button activated sound electronics, 2019

Coffee and Sandwich at Her Pick (with Alessandor Earnest), 9 x 13 x 2 1/2″ and 10 seconds, pigment ink and acid free tape on acid free paper with push button activated sound electronics, 2019

In these works I wanted to use technology to bring more transparency, accountability, and social responsibility to the tradition of drawing the live model. I experimented with the idea of the artist sharing vulnerability with the sitter. In the previous series, “Sitter Response: Handwritten”, some of the most authentic and spontaneous responses from the sitter were spoken but self censored or lost in the process of the sitter writing on the artwork. These later portraits audibly whisper rebuttals to my perception or emit unexpected sounds from the sitter. The series embraces portraiture as description of relationships both within the tradition of painting and outside of it. Made without an erasable medium, the physically ripped and bandaged portraits are records of a struggle to improve (my own) limited visual literacy; to grapple with bias and social conditioning. The second round of these portraits raised around $400 to non-profits benefitting the youth of the at-risk community in the direct vicinity of the gallery space where these works were exhibited in March 2020. In a conceptual work I called the “gentrification tax” I had each portrait citter pick the non-profit, while the buyer of each work decided what they were willing to pay and how much of it went to the non-profit and how much of it went to me.