I am motivated by fear and doubt, also conflict.  Most everything that I make involves the movement from conflict towards a kind of resolution, but not necessarily clarity.  It has taken me some time to realize this and put words to feeling.  But I believe that every individual needs conflict as something to push against, as in something to overcome, in order to become a better individual.  To uphold Democracy, must we have violence with conflict?  I am not sure.  It is an embodiment to various degrees, like walking a path with a shoe on one foot, the other foot bare.  My work takes on many forms simultaneously: small drawings, paintings on paper, sculpture, things that fall somewhere in between.  When doubt creeps, I look towards nature because there lies a clue: constant change.  Nature is a deceptive mirror.  Having recently moved to Pittsburgh, PA with my family after living 15 years in Brooklyn, NY, I am lucky enough to now own a small backyard garden.  But it needs a lot of work.  I grew up in Ohio, not far from where we live now, but the landscape here is more hilly, the steepest street in America nearby.  A cracker refinery plant is thirty miles away on the Ohio river.  Rare cancers are a plague to its nearby residences, yet there are no environmental impact studies.  Business as usual.  My son had a full liver transplant when he was 6 months old.  Nearly 7 years ago, we received a phone call from the doctors saying that they have located a donor.  It is never a good situation for a deceased donor or their family, but we are thankful for life, also for death, and also for human innovation.  I recently had to uproot a pine tree because it was growing too close to our house.  I saved the rootball, painted it electric blue, and  it became something else.     

~BK 2019.