Illegally installed on street corners in abandoned fire alarm boxes these installations use fugitive and often overlooked spaces to bring the gallery to the street rather than the street to the gallery. As ‘street corner galleries’ these boxes and the objects they hold reclaim space and shout back in a city where even the tiniest bit of real estate is unattainable to the majority of the population. In this climate reclamation of even the smallest space is an act of resistance. Placement in these rogue venues gives the work, as well as the world the work is from a voice without needing to seek permission from the traditional gatekeepers. Their installation also gives the work an opportunity to reach those who would not or could not normally find themselves at museums and galleries due to class-based limitations of free time and capital.

This series explores the fading identity of the Italian-American alongside the disappearance of the old New York, both of which my own personal identity is and has been closely tied to. These works use self-portraits to archive recognizable imagery and symbols from the era where these cultures thrived. The pieces are a monument to the once everyday visuals which now near complete extinction on the modern New York landscape. The works allow for a sort of closure, documenting the nostalgia and moving forward, giving the memories their proper respect while peeling away the layers of ‘self’. This process brings me to the conclusion that though I am all of these things with which I identify, I am also none of them. Io Sono Niente translates to “I am nothing”.

This collection is a souvenir of my journey while residing in my wife's childhood O’ahu home amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic. Here in this new land my familiar visual language and cultural references which usually shape my creative endeavors become irrelevant. Without this dependency I find myself questioning who I am creatively. The detachment brings liberation. My daily meditation practice transforms into a morning pilgrimage along the shoreline where I search for vibrant fragments of debris, like a sandpiper seeking nourishment. The result is a departure from my New York-centric art as I create my most color-rich and spontaneous works to date. These pieces appear more akin to votive statues than self-portraits, transcending the limiting boundaries of cultural relevance and connecting with the unlimited, universal essence of the spirit.

Resin bodies cast in collaboration with Derrick Laug Laug.