The Progression of Regression
taxidermied german shepherd, old wolf pelt 2010 73" x 49" x 42"
went to leave
photograph taken from a bridge 120' above a chalk drawing I made with my Mom on the highway below 2009 45" x 29"
Artist Statement
My Dad is an iconoclast and unknowingly instilled in me an affinity for defiance. Norm’s stories of Black Panthers, free dental clinics, giant snapping turtles, and war protests galvanized my pursuit for hope.
The sense of urgency that the sixties brought has been marginalized and trivialized; my work acts to resuscitate this sense of activism. Images such as John Carlos and Tommie Smith atop the podium at the 1968 Olympics proved to be an important cultural statement and boon to the civil rights movement. This action and others like it are a significant foundation for my artistic process and are in direct opposition to our nation’s culture of complacency. I make objects and public interventions to encourage awareness.
I’ve lit the underside of bridges with sunlight reflected off borrowed mirrors, used passing cars’ headlights projected thru cutout cardboard to project a moon on my girlfriend’s dark wall, and built a stoop on wheels to push around town and get to know people better. But my approach oscillates, and recently I have been creating objects. Objects to further inundate an already crowded world of stuff. Objects that seem so blissfully separated from reality; critiquing complacency and aestheticising catastrophe.
My work incorporates disparate media with different approaches on the coming, current, and past apocalypse; human’s inability to escape anthropocentrism. The projects offer alternatives to disaster, critique our creation of disaster, and soft-heartedly accept our fate.
Contact: mcalwayf@gmail.com