DIGITAL PENANCE zine cover
YEESH. Six months, eh? I know I’ve struggled in the past to stay consistent with my blog posts, but six months, that’s a bit of a hiatus. The good news is, I wasn’t taking a nice relaxing vacation or stepping out of the darkness into the light. I was working! And that work has paid off! And I’ve got some physical work to show for it! Besides accepting a new position at my day job, sweating my ass off through a humid West Michigan summer, getting vaccinated, and slowly reemerging into post-lockdown society, I’ve continued to produce grimy, glitchy, nightmarish images. These hundreds of images have now congealed and taken form into the horror that is DIGITAL PENANCE, a body of work made in collaboration with my great friend and amazing artist, Kyle Brand.
We met through my roommate at the time a few years back, and a myriad of shitty circumstances left us working at the same warehouse in the summer of 2019. While mindlessly scrubbing away at thousands of grubby computers taken from the hands of k-12 children after leaving school for their summer break, Kyle and I talked incessantly about art and music (including a lot of Phil Collins and The Body), and found out we have most interests in common. As the leaves turned for the season and the disdain for our menial job grew by the day, we began talking about Halloween, and how we should make some spooky art to celebrate and get our misery out in some creative capacity.
One fateful day, we left work, drove to a park just outside of downtown, and did some camera tests with the setting sun and Kyle draped in a black bedsheet. Two years later, we’ve not only created a zine displaying over thirty pieces of our collective series (only a fragment of the total work we’ve produced), we’ve just celebrated the opening reception for DIGITAL PENANCE here in Grand Rapids.
DIGITAL PENANCE opening reception internet flier
Working on this series with Kyle has been more than lifechanging. Since Fall of 2019, I’ve learned to hone my skills of previsualization, I’ve executed elaborate shoots and worked with so many friends and family, whom have shared in our excitement and shown so much support that I still want to cry. I’ve taken my lifelong fling with horror and realized it’s my passion, my true fascination. This project has taught me how to look at fear and admire it as well as analyze it, and find out what really scares me. I’ve been working almost constantly on an image or photoshoot or some sort of disgusting, glitched edit for this project over two absurd, difficult years, filled with a global pandemic, protests, riots, political turmoil, death, job changes, seeing a psychic, having a mental breakdown, and so many more events my exhausted brain either forgot in the moment or buried deep never to resurface.
Yet, you wanna know what the wildest thing is? People tell me that they’ve seen myself and my art evolve and grow throughout the creation of DIGITAL PENANCE, and I agree with them! I am still anxiety ridden and try to be humble whenever given the chance, but I can’t help but admit that I have grown, and I love what Kyle and I have created! And, not only have we worked tirelessly through the mess of the last two years, we had an exhibition! In person! With physical prints, and paintings, and even a fucking confessional to admit to your sins! At The DAAC, the first gallery and show space I had ever been to in Grand Rapids when I first moved here ten years ago (despite it now being in a separate (and really rad) location)!
I would usually say forgive me for the word vomit at this point, but you haven’t heard from me in half a year, what do you expect? Besides, all these words are full of love and energy. The opening reception was almost two weeks ago, and even now my body still wants to shake and sweat from how unbelievably well it went, and how many friends and family showed up to check out the haunting visages we have created. To anyone who was able to make it, or has helped us in any capacity to make this happen, thank you so, so much. It means the fucking world to me, and I’m sure Kyle would agree. We have a closing reception the day before Halloween, another dream come true. Naturally, it will be a costume party, and naturally, I still have yet to put together a costume. Some habits die hard.
Note: At the time of this post, I have yet to create a space here to display work from DIGITAL PENANCE. For the time being, please creep on my Instagram, as it contains most of the work displayed in the exhibition as well as the zine. If you’d like to purchase a zine of your own, please comment below or contact me through my About page. <3