Things is my love affair with consumerism. It is a comment on consumption as leisure where objects speak louder about indulgence than purpose. What is an object’s value beyond function? In Things I make functional objects useless to question value and the notion of what has value and what does not.

Questioning an objects value beyond function is inspired by the ideas proposed by Michael Thompson’s Rubbish Theory. Thompson’s suggests that value is dynamic and based on context. In Things I play with the value dynamic by creating images that maneuver between a functional creation of desire and the functionless status as an art object.  

Things allows me to apply an artistic process in an attempt to transform the mass produced object into artwork and changing its context through photography. Painting reduces the photographed object in to raw material. The process of spray painting is a transformative gesture that conceals the surface while soliciting attention. The object is now elevated to deal with the presence that the commercial world produces. Painting the objects in Things is an expression of my fetish for the mass-produced, a fascination with color, and the artist’s power of ennoblement.

I offer sensational experience through the interaction of color and object modeled by semiotic theories during the artistic process. I use the interpretative code theories of Umberto Eco to establish a set of rules for the artwork that provide a consistency in content and expression through color relationships, object selection and linguistic messages.

Things results in photographic artwork that investigates the value of objects stripped of the properties that elicit desire. It is an investigation in to my desire replace functional use with artistic appeal in an attempt to creating images that are simultaneously advertisement and artwork.