I am interested in the space between the grotesque and the sublime, the line linking high culture and low culture- I play with art historical icons while questioning ideas of the spiritual, the metaphysical and the dualities of life and death. The Mosaic Collage (Mixel PIxel) (2010) is a variant in my exploration of Aztec/Mixtec imagery combined with a contemporary vernacular. In the past, I have delicately rendered archeological mosaic masks and skulls in colored pencil. This process generally starts from printing over sized versions of sourced images from either art history books or images acquired directly from museums of works in their collections. This new series of collages is made from the various remnants of these large scale print outs. By layering four different examples of Mosaic Masks and Skulls, I have transformed the originals into completely new deities. Powerful in presence “Mixel Pixel” looks like an ancient robot or a comic book witch doctor, all the while the title acknowledges the fact that it is printed pixels and mixed together to create a fresh archetype of past and present.
