My latest birthday trip was booked with one goal in mind: seeing the band Swans at Tucson’s Rialto Theatre. Day of the show, Shaylee and I spent the morning exploring one of Arizona’s most iconic sites: Mission San Xavier del Bac and its nearby hidden gem, Grotto Hill.
The mission, often called the “White Dove of the Desert”, is a masterpiece of Spanish Colonial architecture that looks surreal with it’s almost glowing white color/aura, almost. While most visitors were focusing on the church itself, Shaylee and I checking out Grotto Hill just beside it. The trail takes you past classic desert flora, with tall saguaro cacti all around. At the top, there’s a small grotto built into the rocks with a shrine to the Virgin Mary. People leave candles, flowers, and prayers there, and a marker explains that it was dedicated in 1908 to honor the apparitions at Lourdes in France.
It was a great discovery for me, and it gave me a great excuse to practice using my camera. I look forward to documenting more unique places I find in the desert.
The ornate facade of Mission San Xavier del Bac, the ‘White Dove of the Desert’, standing as one of Arizona’s most iconic landmarks just south of Tucson.A Virgin Mary statue placed inside the rocky niche at Grotto Hill. Faith carved into the Arizona desert landscape.Towering saguaro cacti reach toward the sky in Tucson’s Sonoran Desert.A crumbling adobe wall stands as a reminder of Arizona’s historic desert architecture, overlooking fertile farmland outside Tucson. The mix of rustic ruins and lush fields captures the contrast between the region’s arid landscape and its pockets of agricultural life.The blazing Tucson sun captured in intense light and color.A statue of the Virgin Mary rests in a stone grotto at Tucson’s Grotto Hill, surrounded by colorful flowers left in devotion.A weathered stone lion statue in Tucson shows both strength and time’s passage. Surface is worn, marked but still standing as a guardian figure.The gated altar of Grotto Hill, decorated with flowers and candles, invites visitors to pause and respect this century-old sacred site.A statue of the Virgin Mary rests in a stone grotto at Tucson’s Grotto Hill, surrounded by colorful flowers left in devotion.Towering saguaro cacti reach toward the sky in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson.
On Saturday August 30, 2025 at 6pm there will be a closing reception for my art show at ReBar. This show, loosely titled “Cognitive Errors”, consists of 10 abstract paintings, including a collaborative series painted with Dan Brady called “Shady Ladies“. I appreciate Michelle Graves asking me to feature in the Downtown Las Vegas hangout in the heart of the Arts District. It’s always a pleasure to share my abstract expressionist paintings with people, no matter the setting.
During the closing event, I’ll have a very limited run of handmade CD-R copies of In Relative Obscurity II: Without An End In Mind, which also includes the bonus album CIA Listening Station in Germany. The Berlin recordings were created in June 2022 during my artist residency with The Cube LV Gallery, using field recordings from my time in Europe and guitar sessions at Noisy Rooms.
This release bridges my interest in spacey, guitar-driven drone music with my later Nevada Arts Council grant-funded projects that fully integrate video art for another layer of context and expression. Both iterations of In Relative Obscurity were filmed and performed in the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, at the Goldwell Open Air Museum’s Red Barn Arts Center.
For anyone who enjoys supporting unique and small-batch music projects, these CDs are a great way to collect something personal and rare. Whether you put it on for a long ambient drive or simply want to own one of only ten signed and numbered copies, it’s as much a piece of art as it is a listening experience.
Come hangout on Saturday, August 30 and say hello!
“Flesh Toned (Dumpster Fire), 2022, 48″ x 48″, Inks and Acrylics on Found Framed Canvas. Sold in a silent auction on First Friday at Recycled Propaganda in DTLV“Divine Conflict”, 2020, 24×36″, Ink and Acrylic on Image of New York City. Sold in July of 2022 from audio/visual exhibition “Cognitive Distortion/s” at the Arts Factory DTLV“52 Stick Figures (At Night)”, 2014, 24×36″, House Paint on Found Wood Canvas, Sold in 2014 during my first painting exhibition, “W/OUND”, in the “Glorified Hallway”, with works painted to raise funds to record an EP of the same name. I would trade music for painting after this newfound language of art.“Untitled”, 2019, Inks & Oils on Canvas Board“Jennifer Aniston Tries Not To Ralph”, 2020, Ink Pen and Acrylics on Canvas, Available, Email for Inquiry“What Your Soul Looks Like”, 24×36″, 2022, Acrylics and Oil Pastels on Canvas, Sold“Entirely Made Up To Stay Busy (Featured Column)”, 2022, Sold“IT’S MY DOW & I WANT IT NOW!”, 2022, Ink Pen & Acrylic on loose canvas“Entourage Effect”, 2020, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas“Agitated House Wife Takes It Out On The Dog (More News at 11), 2022, Mixed Media, Sold
It was the year I finally worked out of a legitimate art studio and had 2 different Artist In Residency experiences. Residency experiences are essentially giving someone gallery space to work and/or display their work. For some, it’s an experiment in transition when it comes to the environment they paint in. For others, like me, it’s an experiment in having ANY environment to actually paint in; with your body and soul (as cheesy as that is).
Having a studio space awarded to me via an application process was a lesson in patience that proved essential when applying these types of opportunities. Each phase of the decision process would include me weeks of waiting in which I would look inwards towards my self and any possible motivations that I could identify that might not be what I consciously believed was happening.
After a few weeks of reflection & lack of space to paint in at home, it became clear to me I wanted a place outside of my home to create large format abstract expressionist artworks. The point in my life in which I became aware of this was objectively the opposite of a time in which I could afford or even get to an art gallery, let alone work daily on my creative practices in one. Realistically, it seemed a rather long term goal, which I was honestly comfortable with.
Painting it of course more that just the act itself, though. This is something that is hard to articulate through words. And thus, after this loose goal was made in my mind in January 2021, I kept living, unknowingly jumping head first into a year that would see me work out of 4 different studio spaces in both New Orleans Square & Arts Factory. I would either pay rent or be granted a month or so in which I could paint in a particular space. One of these would be Fremont Country Club, in which I would write the poem shown in the image at the top of this post
I wrote the poem while I was absolutely pulling my hair out trying to imagine what I should submit as my first public art proposal idea. My mind had originally gone towards sculpture as the best medium to explore for this opportunity to display “site-specific artwork for the Wetlands Park using recycled and earth-friendly materials” that would be essentially be made for the general public.
In the end I would scrawl this poem into four planks of wood that were screwed into a wooden canvas I had painted for it’s background. I was happy with it, and I was happy to have been successful in my application process as well as carrying it out, from beginning to end.
Here is where you can find all ten artists that participated in the 2022 public art project, “MIGRATE”.
The subtitle, Without An End In Mind, is taken directly from an essay I was commissioned to write for the UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum’s quarterly publication, Dry Heat Vol. 5 (aka “The Goldwell Issue”. I wrote about the first iteration of IRO and how I was inspired by Albert’s spirit of improvisation, in contrast to Executive Director, Suzanne Hackett-Morgan’s opening essay reflecting on the origins of the organization and her vision for it’s future.
The project is conceptually grounded in the legacy of the late Belgian artist Albert Szukalski. It serves as a contemporary dialogue with Szukalski’s methods, while also responding to the desert environment itself, where even the movement of sand produces remarkable ambient sonic textures. He remarked that the landscape of Nevada, specifically Rhyolite, reminded him of the holy lands depicted in the bible; making it the perfect backdrop for his Last Supper sculpture.
Filmed on October 19th, 2024, the morning of Goldwell’s 40th anniversary celebration, the work largely centers on a single static sunrise shot of the valley. The audio consists of an improvised electric guitar performance recorded with an amplifier and field recorder, capturing the violence of the high desert winds and the reverb of my guitar’s sound; both bouncing off of the barn’s metal tin roof.
De oorlog is voorbij! (self-portrait on an Andy Warhol base) * zeefdruk * 82 x 71 cm * 1972 collectie Frank Heirman, Antwerpen
In 1972, founding artist of Goldwell Open Air MuseumAlbert Szukalski had a solo exhibition at the MultiArt Gallery of Liliane and Paul Ibou in Antwerp, Belgium. At the same time, Szukalski presented two different shows with two different invitations, one pop art, the other one conceptual. For ‘13 self-portraits on an Andy Warhol base’ Szukalski took a silk-screened self-portrait of Warhol and introduced his own self-portrait in it. He performed the result in thirteen different colours in Warhol’s way.
The second part of the exhibition ‘General view on culture (?)’, presented a series of thirteen square mirrors carrying comments such as “General view on culture” or “An innocent onlooker”. Szukalski ironically stated that, with his mirrors he had created both a utility object for the lady and an art object with a deeper thought for the gentleman…
General view on culture (?) * spiegels (details) * (x2) 100 x 100 x 13 cm * 1972 collectie Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke
With Adriaan Raemdonck’s gallery De Zwarte Panter in Antwerp, Szukalski established his longest and closest collaboration. The gallery dedicated four solo exhibitions to the artist in the seventies. In 1973 the exhibition ‘Bagage’ presented a series of assemblages of suitcases and a scaled-down version in bronze. Later in the same year, the exhibition ‘Safari’, in collaboration with the fur manufacturer Benoit, showed a series of large-scale collages made of fur. At the vernissage, Szukalski had a model dressed in a panther coat parade with a real panther. In 1975 with the exhibition ‘Perforaties’ Szukalski presented ready-made sculptures and objects in which he had drilled holes. In 1976, for the exhibition ‘Patate cosaque, patate sauvage’ Szukalski made a point of producing the most expens resulting in nine bronze potato sculptures.”– Excerpt from Szukalski, Eenvoudig dus moeilijk, Retrospective Biographical Publication by Verbeke Foundation
I love that we can see Albert go from, honestly, quite a focused though still humorous body of work in conversation with Andy Warhol‘s works at the time straight into De Zwarte Panter. It states his first show was named “Bagage” and it was literally suitcases and various other forms of literal baggage. I can appreciate Adriaan’sallowance of Albert’s forward thinking/improvisational approaches to exhibitions, as that is honestly how great things are done in art. Patronage alone is a vital part of creation, whether it’s by one’s self or an art collector; so Adriaan letting Albert come in and do his thing so seemingly carelessly reads as a refreshing take on “fringe” art practices happening at the time.
This is something Albert often considered in his works; the concept of the moment, intuition, situations. He was called “the situation-maker” by the Antwerp press, a name he proudly kept and one that seemed to fuel his works in the early 70’s, mostly at De Zwarte Panter. Brilliance can be beckoned by simply “letting go” or being mindfully free of any constraints; real or imagined. It can be more difficult than actually planning out ones moves / paintings, sculptures, etc.
I like to think Albert remembered that consistently throughout his years and subconsciously communicated it in his works.
