Yes my work is political, but it is not nearly enough to place it in this category because it is far too large of a category; it’s hardly different than asking me if I read books. Political art has many subcategories, and I will tell you what I am and what I am not in one simple polarity: metaphor vs palpability, an odd polarity and probably not grammatically totally accurate, but it serves the purpose. I am talking about talking about things in allusions vs directly attempting to create the thing that would be talked about. Of course, the latter is largely impossible with art. I think Chris Burden shooting himself in 1971 was an interesting attempt. In any event, I am not a metaphorical political artist, though I'm not Chris Burden either. I know this: I do not create political metaphor, representations, likenesses of a societal issue. I present something much different entirely. I present images that belie deep subconscious lived truths. These subconscious driving emotional characteristics of our culture are totally real. I'm talking about the root emotional causes of the problems presented in my work. They are part of the very fabric of all of our being. That is the distinct political world in which my work lives. I do not present ideas that are meant as metaphors for a problem, something that aligns with a situation in a clear or perhaps not so clear way whose function is to point at it and certainly not in any kind of cynical way. My work is meant to incite the subconscious cultural psyche within, to awaken it to itself in a very indescribable, pre-linguistic way. You might call my work the politics of our cultural beliefs that only show up as feelings, deep patterned emotions, to which I am asking: Why are they there? Why are they constructed in the way that they are? Do we want them? Do we in fact like them?
Should all art be political? I think to live is to be political, so art falls within the lived experience, so there is your answer.
Is my work activist? No. I am not an activist. I’m an artist. That's the realm I occupy. An activist is an activist, and that's not what I do. I think blending the two as a self-proclaimed title is bullshit and disrespectful to activists. Artists can be damned. We shouldn't be offended for being contained by our meager craftiness. Activists deserve more dignity in my view. They are the heroes. We are not.