My work, whether it be painting, sculpture or the general installation, is highlighting moments of work and leisure within a working-class context. I see this as a necessary revisiting of the American tradition of Social Realism. Following the Great Depression, artists shifted their focus towards the working-class experience. Their realistic portrayal of American life acted as a political weapon protesting the deficiencies of American capitalism while highlighting the values and dignity of an entire class of people. I align myself with this part of American history because I recognize that those same social and economic injustices are operating covertly today. As the working class continues to struggle ten years after the housing market crash of 2008, you can see clear examples of class exploitation, disproportionate resource allocation, and the division of a collective working-class consciousness.
When the Roosevelt Administration enacted the New Deal, they gave Americans economical hope in the face of mass unemployment, poverty, and deflation. Alongside many other social programs was the Federal Arts Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which hired artists like Ben Shahn, Phillip Evergood, and Jacob Lawerence to petition a collective consciousness through the realistic portrayal of familiar experiences in America. The goal was to galvanize the people around American values despite immense hardship. I think this can be an effective approach in dismantling systems of stratification that prevent the working class from collective action. While our society is being divided over issues of race, immigration, gender and religion the wealthy sit back and collect their profits.
The crash of the housing market in 2008 and the following recession sparked the mobilization of the Occupy Movement. In 2011, people of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs stood on Wall Street in solidarity. They were protesting the fact that the wealthiest 1% of America controls a massive majority of our country’s income, property, and power while the rest of us live paycheck to paycheck. However, despite having a valid claim that affects the majority of our country’s population, Occupy Wall Street failed. Why? The answer can be found in the results of our most recent presidential election. Despite Donald Trump’s obvious interest in big business, he persuaded a large percentage of poor and working-class white people to vote against their own economic interests. His success stems from his ability to tap into a fear of losing a certain expectation of living. However, that expectation is one that is assumed based on Whiteness.
Racial hierarchy has been consistently used in our country’s history to divide and conquer the poor. Despite the absence of an overt racial hierarchy in our government and society today, the history has left a residual effect in psychology of White America. Cheryl Harris coined the phrase Whiteness as Property to describe how white privileges have been reified through law and, in turn, produces an inherent feeling of superiority among white people. That’s not to say that economic inequity is simply an issue of race, but by not confronting these power dynamics or the larger motives they are serving we are disabling our ability to communicate cross-culturally as well as confront issues as a majority.
I grew up in a working-class community in the inner city of Columbus Ohio. Our community was an amalgamation of people of varying cultures, ethnicities, religion, sexual orientation and language and the common thread for everyone was location and class. Living in a lower or working-class community facilitates communication because you often need to lean on your neighbor. Whether you need to borrow someone’s car to get to work or need a last-minute babysitter for an hour after school, you can count on your friends for help because they have been there and understand. In this case, economical circumstance created a culture of inclusion and gave us the opportunity to learn about each other cross-culturally. Before leaving Columbus, I thought this was a common experience, but my time in higher education showed me how wrong I was. When I attended Denison University I quickly realized that everyone in attendance looked like me, but with seemingly limitless wealth and a completely different value system. In reconciling these different experiences, I have become aware of a culture of exclusion that seems to mirror larger systems of division that facilitate an inequitable allocation of wealth and resources. Such harsh contrast in experiences opened my eyes to how privileged I was to grow up in a community I did, but also a need to better understand capitalism and American class dynamics.
I work with oil paint because of its associations. Oil painting in general and portraiture specifically are tied historically to wealth and high-culture. I work within this medium in an attempt to subvert this expectation. I further undermine these norms by working on found or repurposed materials. Painting on a piece of cardboard brings to light a culture of thrift and frugality that is commonplace in the working-class experience. In that same spirit I think it is important to point out that mostly all of the materials used in this body of work were found, repurposed, or donated. My intention in these paintings and sculpture is to touch on experiences that are familiar to working-class people in order to generate a collective consciousness that transcends divisions based on race, religion, ethnicity or any other means. I attempt to build a narrative through the repetition of cultural objects that have religious significance. When I use the word religious I am referring to objects that are consistently present within a working-class context. For instance, a ladder is a universal tool that is used in a multitude of working-class professions. Arizona Ice-tea cans are marketed to working-class communities and are present in every corner store. Through the acknowledgment of these objects I hope to transform a personal moment into something ubiquitous.
I want to evoke a feeling of familiarity within the work, but this obviously will not be felt by every viewer. For me, that is fine because I find their projections to be extremely telling. The paintings then have a dual-function. They can uplift those who recognize the narrative as well as expose the blind-spots of those who are unfamiliar. If you consider the way in which urban space has been fetishized in music, movies and other media, Smoke Break might evoke a feeling of fear because you’ve been taught to understand an alleyway as a place for drug dealers, prostitutes or muggers. For some, however, it could be a place of refuge during a twelve-hour kitchen shift.
It is my hope that these paintings can acknowledge problematic symptoms of capitalism, refocus the interests of the collective working class and bridge the gap of communication, and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, celebrate community cohesion and other working-class values. Presenting a positive counter narrative is the first step in disproving the fear fashioned by white supremacy.