My work is about the dream of a middle-class utopia; its rapid development, failure, and our longing for it. The promise of Fordism was not simply that of a livable wage, but also one of social engineering that extended beyond the factory and into the home. Both my video work and works on paper combine traditional techniques (painting, drawing, stop-motion animation) with computer-aided 3D modeling to create an atmosphere that is both opulent and stark. With imagery including AstroTurf, vinyl-sided houses, and the Ford Country Squire Station Wagon, my work carries a sincere nostalgia for the capitalist utopia of the 20th century and understanding that it was always fated for collapse.
Most recently I have been drawing parallels between the collapse of this 20th century American utopia and certain mythologies and religious texts that also carry the theme of an unsustainable growth followed by collapse. My piece "The Good Life" is based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream from the Book of Daniel. It traces the history of middle-class commodity culture through a collage of video, stop-motion animation, and sound. This work takes the viewer through the development of the 'Fordist dream,' it's rapid crescendo, and the aftermath.