homefield advantage
a collaborative mural painted with Mata Ruda and Nanook for Savage Habbit and the City of Secaucus, NJ. 2015.
the mural is a compilation of different flowers native to New Jersey as well as the Monarch butterfly, a symbol of migration for the Americas as it moves north to south during its lifetime. These symbols of locality and movement are weaved as the background and broken by a Diamondback Terrapin turtle on the right side, a species native to black swamps and marshes and by a series of silhouettes. These silhouettes are all taken from a First Nation's Powwow and speak to Secaucus' Lenni Lenape history having been their original inhabitants and also of the idea of a Powwow or social gathering which is echoed by the Kane Stadium location of the mural. Inside these silhouettes we recreated one of George Catlin's paintings in greyscale. Catlin was the first 1800's American painter to visually record Native American people's and traditions in the great plains, this is one of the paintings he made during his travels and in a way it serves as a reminder of the importance of representation and the artist's role as a medium, witness and active agent in this struggle.