27 Minutes, 2019-2022, single channel video, sound, 27:00’ (studio installation on 50” monitor)
On October 4, 2016, my brother underwent emergency open heart surgery during which his body was connected to a heart and lung machine for twenty seven minutes. The successful process kept his heart perfectly still for that amount of time. The single channel video studies his lightly closed fist, a volumetric approximation of his own heart, in different settings around his house in April 2017.
The sound was recorded in May 2017 from my front porch in Minnesota. The original audio is a 4 minute recording of birds chirping which I slowed down to 27 minutes, creating a muffled and distant sonic experience.
Time Signature, 2020-2022, archival pigment print, non-glare plexiglass, hardware, 11” x 8.5”.
Time Signature is a to-scale reproduction of my brother’s “signature” from his emergency room intake form on the day of his death in 2018. Working with a digital file of the health form, I erased everything from the document except his final, gestural mark.
Our Disbelief, posthumous collaboration with David Christian, 1999-2019, unique pigment print, 27” x 40”
My brother, David, unexpectedly died in 2018. While looking through some of his belongings, I found a snapshot he took in Yosemite Valley in 1999. On the back of a 4”x6” machine print of the view from Inspiration Point, he sketched and labeled details of the famous scene he captured that day.
Red Jacket, 2023, manipulated 3XL satin jacket, approximately 36” x 15”
A Copy of a Copy of a Disappearance, 2021, unique pigment print object, 10.25” x 7” x 3.25”
In November 2019, my immediate family and I traveled to San Francisco to scatter my brother’s ashes in the San Francisco Bay. I packaged his ashes in a homemade tissue paper “urn” which would dissolve in the water. In December 2019, I remade the tissue paper container from memory as a form of monument, or surrogate headstone. Later, I scanned, printed and folded the memory container into a life-size, empty replica.
Syncopate is a multidisciplinary project that studies loss, gesture, rhythm, and time through photographs, video, sculpture, and installations made in collaboration with my deceased brother. A syncopation in music or dance is the displacement of the primary, rhythmic beat in favor of the irregular beat. A song with syncopation can sound “off” although the time signature is consistent and can be followed. In October 2016, my older brother and only sibling, and accomplished drummer, David Isaac Paul Christian, survived an aortic dissection and the emergency open heart surgery to correct it. In October 2018, he died. Upon his death, we learned that he struggled with alcoholism. His untimely death completely upended the world of my family and reset my perception of time and sequence. To process this immense loss, I have slowly made works that circumscribe details of his life, his unique story of surviving an aortic dissection, his addiction, and the emotional and material aftermath of his untimely death.