I value concept in art and I think that it is almost impossible to make decent work without some type of intellectual content, but I always keep in mind that I am a visual artist, and as such I make it my number one priority to make something that is visually interesting.

Finding a balance between the two is always ideal, but I would prefer to make a piece that looks nice and has no concept over a piece that is pure concept and has no visual interest. If your work is so horrid that it alienates 90% of the people that look at it, then your precious concept is not being communicated very effectively, which is kind of self-defeating for a conceptual piece to do.

There is a lot of pressure for modern artists to value the concept over the physical results of the work, and I don’t like it. Every artist wants to have the newest, most outrageous, avant-garde work around, and what you end up with is a bunch of poor saps from Nebraska that go to the MoMA and wonder why they paid fifteen bucks to stand in a room and watch a mirror slowly rotate in a spotlight. Too many modern works stumble into the pitfall of “conceptual art” by being lazy, pretentious, and self-absorbed, and I feel that for me to form an artist statement for my work as a whole would endorse that culture. If requested, I would love to explain and discuss the ideas in any of my pieces or series specifically, but as far as creating a uniting statement the only thing I’ll say this: I make what I want.