Thoughts on Romance from the Road

My work consists of personal narratives placed in public. I wish to draw

attention to the evolving manner in which we experience desire and how that desire is implanted and delivered within our collective minds with the use of our ever-expanding repertoire of technology and entertainment, both of which we desire in and of themselves.

Thoughts on Romance from the Road uses photography to document my text interventions on roadside marquee signs. By placing intimate, diaristic language in public view this work also explores the contemporary impulse to perhaps

overly share our innermost thoughts and vulnerabilities. I place phrases on movie and motel marquee signs, using my own sign letters and then leaving the scene with the words left intact.Before I depart, I make a photograph from the sidewalk or roadside.The photograph becomes the sole remnant of the project as the letters inevitably disappear or are taken down. In its brief existence, each sign installation is read by an audience encountering the work in spaces where they expect to see

advertisements or movie titles.The text phrases are the voice of an individual and are deliberately personal and vaguely melancholy – sharply contrasting with the upbeat advertisements or movie titles typically seen on these signs.

My texts are formulated to read as though they are public diary entries referencing banal realities of self and relationships based on comparison with an ideal. In a gallery space the work is presented as large color prints and looped video documentation of the installations of the signs that exist in public for a limited period of time.

Whether or not an altered sign lasts out in the worldfor a few hours or a few days depends upon who owns the property where each sign is located.

Whenever possible I obtain permission, if I can locate a property owner. If I cannot do so I will most likely use it anyway, knowing that the installation could be more short-lived than in the opposite case. But I never know precisely what will

happen or how long the installations will remain intact.