(april 2007)
In the shadows
of all of the great monuments provided for us, I've found it much too easy to
be cynical. Instead, I am driven to make illustrations of hope as a counter-measure
against the leviathan. I build alternate memorials, forms which lack permanence
in their material makeup and that embody calls to action. As in dreams, I seek
a creative mobility that allows for free-associations which, in practice, serves
to keep my hands on as many materials as I can find.
My work actively cultivates a healthy skepticism in state-sponsored histories.
I trust the weeds in any vacant lot more than the written legacy of generals
and land speculators. As a working method, I collaborate with like-minded cohorts
to topple stale statues and herald the legacy of the dreamers before us... and
alongside millions of others, I am remapping the world around me with little
concern for a formal training in cartography, using recycled and redirected
tools for the journey.
(bio)
Shaun Slifer is a multidisciplinary artist currently working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received a BFA in Sculpture from Watkins College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee in 2003. Shaun has exhibited nationally in a wide variety of galleries, nonprofit exhibition spaces, and community centers, as well as under bridges and alongside interstate highways. He regularly works in collaboration with other artists as well as in collectively structured settings, including the Street Art Workers collective, the Justseeds Radical Artists Cooperative, and the Free Ride! collective. He also practices organic plant and mushroom gardening, has a penchant for researching radical American history, and is a decent bicycle mechanic.