Memory Replacement World Trade Center Wearable, mixed media on canvas, 2018
Created during a performance and installation with public participation of the same name at the World Trade Center Memorial Site in New York City.
I am glad with this work I was able to incorporate lessons from previous performances and design the wearable to be completely self contained - including the brushes and paint, like a mini art studio. Since the location was so sensitive I wanted the dress to be light and feathery, like something coming from a dream rather than a simple sack from primed canvas. And lastly but not the least of all consideration, I want it to be beautiful and tasteful rather than sharp angled and garish, or provocative. I wanted the action of painting to be the only provocation. These days it has become a fashion in the arts to do just anything and call it art, the missed opportunity in that is that artists these days have no taste, they go for the lowest target of accomplishing a message. I do not want to simply construct a message, I am not a sign painter. I am a creator of beauty and meaning. Creating with taste is simply difficult, difficult to design and difficult to create. to create with taste will be my contribution to performance art. One of the lessons I learned working as an artist in the Silicon Valley is how to manage process where you take something that is ugly and unappealing and then you make it beautiful through iterations and continuous improvement. And this is the process I used to create this work.