Nicolas Bourriaud discusses a contemporary art practice, coined “postproduction”, as artists who reproduce, re-purpose, or re-mix available cultural products in a process referred to as ‘cultural recycling’. Similar to hip-hop artists sampling previously created music or splicing together clips of video, postproduction is the act of synthesizing disparate artifacts from our lives to create a fresh, open-ended narrative. Hoping to reveal the absurdity of American consumerism, global economy and the chaos of mass media, my work juxtaposes mid-American aesthetics of taxidermy and floral arrangement with the gossip, glamour and glitz of Hollywood royalty.

We are flooded with this detritus providing us with a convenient distraction from important issues of life. Growing up in rural, mid-America where television is a dominant force, has led pop culture to be a central characteristic of my work. Pop culture transcends race, class, politics and geography. Everyone knows of Britney Spears. Equally decadent and artificial are taxidermy and faux flowers. I see these artifacts as preserving heroism freezing a moment of manhood. It’s a kind of bragging right of one’s command over nature.

Although the work is not intended to be hypercritical of celebrity lives, I do hope to create a space for humorous dialogue about the subject. In bringing these sculptures to life, I hope to take a snapshot of a moment in time addressing the complexity of the American experience in an entertaining fashion.

So often contemporary art is inaccessible to a general audience and the art world upholds an esoteric dialogue over one understood by the masses. I hope to make artwork whose subject is common enough to invite everyone. Celebrities are just the protagonist for such a goal.