Trigger Warning Series
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My relationship with guns is complicated. As the son of a police officer, I grew up around firearms, yet I do not own one myself. Guns embody an inherent duality—offering comfort to some and fear to others. The same can be said of belief systems and civic structures like the Law and organized religion. Built to uphold order, they can also be used to oppress when stripped of context.
My recent work examines how belief, identity, and violence intersect within American culture. In Making Peace | Piece Maker, a disassembled firearm rests beside a Bible and the U.S. Constitution—each a system of power, each loaded with meaning. This tension carries through my sculptural works. Southern Comfort turns a gun rack into a gilded relic. If I Die Before I Wake pairs a cast concrete handgun with a soft pillow, contrasting danger and comfort that a bedside weapon offers. American Altar | American Icon transforms a shooting-range stand into a Byzantine shrine, while Open Wound captures the ballistic force of impact in shot ceramic vessels. Holy. Ghost. references the way weapons are worshiped by replacing the consecrated bread with a disassembled 3D-printed ghost gun. Across these works, I seek to navigate the interplay of comfort and fear, reverence and violence, faith and control. By dismantling systems and their symbols, I aim not to resolve contradictions, but to make them visible—to sit within the tension where belief, identity, and violence converge. |
American Altar | American Icon (detail), Screen print and gold leaf on paper target mounted on wood target stand, 6’ x 3’ x 4’, 2025
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