"Bonneville" a photo/poem

The driving force in contemporary art is the need to unsettle the viewer. No longer is it a matter of simple/complex aesthetic beauty. We strive now to open a channel in the viewer; as I have more clearly come to realize discussing Koons with "K". We have become explorers of perception, umwelt. We coax from the viewer a certain frightening freedom--the ability to face one's complex humanity; all that which is hidden and overt.

I went to Philly a while back to visit two of my best friends. Maybe it was the positive energy I'd received from them, maybe it was the buxom chick upstairs I was flirting with--but I became hyperaware of the surrounding landscape. Northern Philadelphia is a sparsely inhabited ruin. Beautiful, but sad and withdrawn. The decaying buildings, the old cars, the peeling paint--as if it were landlocked in time and never found revenue to grow. Under the hand of gentrification north Philly has been left to decay, little by little. The families still live there, but the property value continues to fall and the signs posted by hungry/vulture realtors fly up on the walls.

I spent my time trying to capture the landscape, both concretely and abstractly through photography. But I certainly didn't want the books meaning to be so simple or straightforward. While I thought constantly of gentrification; the photos seek to capture something greater. There is an interplay of duality in idea and color. I sought to find two ends of the same spectrum and present them, side by side as being equal parts of the same environment.

When the viewer is presented with imagistic text--naturally there is a need to configure the image mentally. But what becomes of your image after its creator has presented you with the original ideation behind the word? This is the truest intention of my book, "Bonneville"

It will be available on Amazon very soon. I'll keep you all posted