Category: Installation

Sal Bald (2015)

(2015) Mural painted as a memorial. Seattle WA

 

Mural painted as a memorial remembering time, effort, and thought, in a shared rehearsal space that had been in effect for over ten years. Drifting between streets and vacant lots, not far in our past is the ghost of a rainforest lush with wet green vegetation. Sometimes it works out who ends up with the last set of keys to get into a building slated for demolition. To bring this mural to life a hundred gallons of paint were delivered to the space, then over the course of a month the entire space roughly 40.000 square foot was painted (floors and walls). The walls are painted with 20 foot tall letters reading, MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN. Oddly enough to this day the building still has not been demolished, for reasons unknown.

 

City Unseen City Arts Feature May 2015

 

STar (2012)

(2012) Mural

 

Commissioned by Sound Transit for display on Capital Hills’ former red wall around the construction site of the light rail station. For the holidays, ten artists were paired with ten nonprofit organizations to create a work of art on a holiday star. I was paired with Velocity Dance Center. I created this geometric line pattern using painter’s tape and acrylic paint.

 

Photo Alex Garland

Mother Printed Poem (2012)

(2012) Text block printed on muslin, created for Mother for you I made this performance.

 

In developing my route for the performance of Mother for you I made this, I found myself gravitating towards the Federal Court House because I felt its backdrop during the performance could stand in as a symbol for the machine of America that forgets so many of its parts. I wanted to write a poem speaking to a courtroom and its judge: an only child pleading with the court/country’s constituents to see the forgotten and vulnerable, an only child pleading for the rights of his institutionalised mother. In my short film Listen I read this poem to an empty counsel chamber in Seattle’s City Hall. 

 

Photo Nate Watters

To create this work I first had to measure the length between a desirable grove of trees located in the courtyard of the Court House. Having the exact distances between each tree, I started to create the layout of each word and each sentence. I had to take into consideration the direction that the poem would unfurl from my belly and how the audience was going to be viewing this work as I wrapped this poem through the trees. Once I had these steps completed this allowed me to determine the total length that was going to be needed to both complete the poem and also begin sewing the full length of muslin together. In total this poem is a hundred and fifty feet long. I hand printed each letter of each word, meticulously measuring each sentence so that it fell in the middle of its allotted length. I created a special undershirt that had a built compartment that housed and allowed for the poem to look as though it was being pulled from my belly. When the poem was wrapped in the trees it created a five pointed star, I think of this as not a nod to the stars on the American flag but a ritual space delineation each and every time I completed the task of wrapping. I am truly proud of this particular performance element. I feel this work digs deep to speak truth to power, and for my love of my mother. (from Mother for you I made this performance)

 

Photo Nate Watters

Photo Nate Watters

Photo Nate Watters

Chin Mayo (2011)

(2011) Mural, FRED Wildlife Refuge Gallery, Seattle WA

 

Chin Mayo mural installation conceptualised and directed by Ezra Dickinson. This mural was created on the walls and floor of FRED Wildlife Refuge Gallery in Seattle, curated by Sean M. Johnson. Sixteen hours were spent masking out the gallery with painters tape. Sixteen hours were spent splattering paint using a number of different methods. Final touches were rolling out chunks of color, organizing the chaos to create the finished piece.

 

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Free Sheep Bald (2010)

(2010) mural painted for the Free Sheep Foundation, Seattle

 

Something that I truly love is solving space through design. For me in this case, this means finding a way to take a space that is undervalued and make the entirety of this space something special. I have a real obsession with confronting the hard to reach spots, wanting to fill every last nook. Leading the viewer on a journey that has uncountable ways that it could be traversed. There is something quite satisfying about using a pen up entirely from start to finish. This mural consisted of an underpainting of spray paint color. Then, fifteen hours continuously of hand drawn work until the pen gave up.

 

619 banner (2005)

(2005) mural painted on banner

 

I painted this banner while living in a small studio apartment. When I got the 30’ by 8’ vinyl banner home my first obstacle was to unfold this massive canvas and set it up so that I could paint it in my small space. I decided that I was going to navigate this banner into a scroll configuration so I could easily work from one end to the other. Panic set in a bit after I had unfolded the banner in my small space and subsequently filled my home with a slightly tangled heavy banner, after about an hour of pushing and pulling I finally wrangled this piece into the configuration I was aiming for, it was an adventure for sure, there was quite a few moments when i was sure I wasn’t going to get the banner under control though.

 

Photo Anthony Rigano

 

I hung this banner off the third floor fire escape of the 619 building for an art walk evening. It was really satisfying to see the whole piece unroll and hang from the building, up to that point I had not seen the whole piece together. 

 

 

A few months later I paired down this banner and cut it into ten sections that I, one by one, turned into stretched paintings on wooden frames. Each paired down piece I added to with adhesive vinyl and/or new colors of acrylic paint.