These two works appear at first to oppose each other. However, despite being polar opposites in form and content, they tell two different sides of humanity. The Christian Faith (and other traditional family values) works to explore the fears found in mortality and the questions that arise through the utterly futile search for answers. The work is plotted out, polished and labored over. Pile, on the other hand, is a free exercise in play, carelessness, and shamelessness. This piece in particular is aesthetic smut, smudged across the white gallery wall, feet away from the image of the crucified Jesus in a graphite reworking of Gaugin’s The Yellow Christ. It might be sacrilegious.

But the two works need each other, and these two approaches to life are terribly important to all. The existential questions that dog each and every person might bring dread, but the option to throw all cares to the wind in Pile exists in equal validity. At the same time, this wall drawing is only a temporary escape. Every high has its comedown.

I didn’t originally think Pile would be included alongside The Christian Faith. But in the end it had to be. Not only for the reasons mentioned above, but because those practicing in faith must be reminded of their humanity, their flaws, their aptitude for fucking things up time and time again. Part of the Christian faith should be about recognizing this in ourselves. After a year spent laboring over such blatantly religious imagery, the responsible thing to do as a creator and subscriber to organized religion was to create an image that could be honest in its total disregard for sanctity. It is an acknowledgment of human nature and excess, but also a temporary escape from the looming fears of the unknown.

“I Am who I Am.”

- Exodus 3:14

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