Up Against the Wall.

Giving language a physical presence, these painted wood blocks are part non-digital text message and part existential fortune cookie. After years of crafting digital messages that are here today, gone later today (what the Japanese aptly call the “water business”), it’s my reaction to an ephemeral way of life.

I enjoy how everyday phrases become slightly absurd when you set them in stone — er, wood — like when you repeat a word so many times it loses meaning, except in reverse. When words literally become objects, does that change their impact? The tension mirrors how language itself can be both immediate and layered with nuance when removed from conventional contexts.

I hope viewers find their own meanings within this linguistic concrete poetry.