22: You describe your work as “compositions of an American Grotesque, that explore what it means
to be human today.” What is “American Grotesque?” How does the exploitation of sexual exploitation play a role?
AB: The scattered and displaced arrangements are an offense to form and mockery of the “living.”
These are sacred slurs. The body (flesh, bone, blood, and guts) is the lowest common denominator between people, and therefore the most sacred of objects. I want to separate the body from the spirit to make an ultimate shell, a radiant corpse, half-mast, meat ghost, absolute materiality. Although we may already be the result, there is a race in every field to transcend the modern body to an immortal simulation, a cyborg, Frankenstein. The hyperrealist America we are exposed to is the true pornographer. A filthy jungle gym. A perversion of itself. Outlandish natures are acceptable and endless trash is produced to try to fill in the black hole of post-modernity. Americans should never take for granted the junk we are fed. I look at everything I am exposed to as a signifier. With paint and in this case tabloids, I aim to objectify things with a capital “E;”context makes this a reality. I wanted to be a garbage man when I was a child; I’m just trying to keep the dream alive!
22: What led you to explore this specific idea of being human? AB: I am compromised. I am neutral. The concrete is becoming obsolete. The plastic is the natural.
I’m an animal, an impeccable animal. What kind of a man am I? Who’s moral is MY moral? I have done unspeakable things. Nothing is sacred. Fragmented and fermenting. So how much of The Body is being “human?” Jesus was an early model for me. The visual depictions of his martyrdom and transcendence could be applied to abstractions of a contemporary experience. People and their fetishes are endlessly curious, and I will always take empathy with the laborer, the busser, craigslister, the Holden Caulfields and the rogue.
22: What would you say to folks who suggest that your works are self-indulgent? AB: Jesus Christ I hope so! Human condition, the self, and navigating your cultural presence create
a distinction between fine art over craft. I am very suspicious of art that is appealing to a majority. It’s the artist’s discoveries and interpretations that make the universal statements and progressive material.
22: Symbolism is obviously a key element in your work and we talked a little about a religious up-
bringing as well as an “exhaustion” with culture playing a role in that. Can you talk a little about those past influences and the current role symbols play in your work?
AB: A church is the best example of the power of a symbol. In exhausting abundance the interior is
drenched with objects, icons, and materials, which all instruct the ritual of living under God. This
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