Showcase Profile

DAMNED STATEMENT

Enter your DAMNED statement below. Please note that only text is allowed (no HTML). We prefer that your statement relates to your views of and/or experiences with being a part of DAMNED. Feel free to share any thoughts of attending the DAMNED events, the DAMNED friendships you may have created and and/or how DAMNED may have affected you as an artist.

Statement

For over a decade, for me, the annual DAMNED art exhibition has been one of brightest spots in the Detroit art world’s cultural calendar. And by “brightest spots,” I of course mean “darkest spots.” And by “darkest” I of course mean darkest like the darkest secrets, darkest like the darkest underground, darkest like the depths of our dreaming minds … When I showed my work at the first DAMNED in 2008, that was one of my first art exhibitions in the then local-to-me Detroit art scene. At that time, I was in that weird point where I was showing in some national and international shows outside of Detroit, but not much in Detroit, and I was sort of wondering if there were spaces and places in Detroit for my type of artwork, where devoted collectors might find my type of dark, weird blend of occult mysticism and hacked technology and activist artwork … and then suddenly with the start of DAMNED, Detroit definitely had that space. Then most recently, a few months after showing in 2018’s DAMNED, I relocated from Detroit to Richmond, Virginia, so the DAMNED exhibition was sort of the start and finish for my work in Detroit as a local Detroit artist. And now I’m looking forward to maybe now being one of the national DAMNED artists, among the strangers coming in from out of town … Over the years of DAMNED I met all sorts of wonderful artists, and reconnected with a few I’d lost touch with and known from elsewhere (like lost friends from art school). For me that was always the best part of DAMNED: No matter what else was going on in the world, some of the coolest and most creative people in Detroit would try to get together and show each other our newest, darkest thoughts. Getting that chance to watch and help each other grow over the dark lifetime of DAMNED has really been the best DAMNED time.