The paintings, digital prints, and videos that I create as Art Jock are deeply rooted in the traditions of process art and gestural abstraction.  For many years a strong component of my work has been the borrowing, referencing and re-working of various traditions as both a way to participate in these traditions as well as to question my relationship to them.  I am also interested in bringing elements of popular or ‘low’ culture (in this case, sports) into a highly aestheticised formal art practice as a way of undermining any divisions that remain between high and low culture.

The puck paintings are made by shooting hockey pucks at a white, goal-size (4’ x  6’) surface.  The puck rubber leaves different marks based on the speed and angle of the shot, and compositions are determined by building up the density of shots in particular areas of the painting’s surface. These works represent my foray into ‘action painting’ and beg the question “what ‘action’ is appropriate as an ‘art’ action?” The puck paintings are often created as a performance with audience participation.

The Bodyworks are large-scale ink jet or C-prints of bruises obtained while playing hockey and mountain-biking.  By printing them much larger than life-size and with an ink jet printer, the images become more abstract and other-worldly, though still recognizable as bruises. I am interested in transforming the meaning usually ascribed to bruises on women (woman as victim) and presenting these marks as heroic emblems of physical conquests.  Additionally, these works are intended to function in dialogue with the history of Body Art (i.e. Eleanor Antin, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden). Visit the bodyworks photo page for a full gallery of images.

The video installation Five Trails consists of a wall-size projection of video.  While I mountain-bike, a video camera pointed at the woods and the ground collects images and sound. The resulting video is a dense collage of color, pattern, and (at times) recognizable foliage/landscape accompanied by sounds of my breathing, the bike on the trail, and the wind. The single channel version of the video can be viewed on the Film/Video page.