"Self Portrait of Myself at 50 in the Corporate World" Series

It is generally understood that an individual’s personality is often a direct result of a combination of their genetic makeup and what they have experienced in the past.  This observation is the crux behind my reasoning for this study in self-portraiture.  Growing up in a conservative, Christian, white-collar home in the Midwest, I experienced much of the same traditions and was expected to assume the same gender-specific roles as my parents had during their childhood.  I’ve always found it interesting that however hard one tries to pull away from certain traditions or values, they always tend to come back to haunt you in mysterious ways.  In this case, those values and traditions have begun to seep through into my artwork.
As we move into an era where identity theft and multiple personalities abound due to the presence of technology and the internet, I’ve found it easier than ever to step out of my own skin and analyze myself as a stranger.  By titling this series: “Self-Portrait of Myself at 50 in the Corporate World”, I have already set the stage with certain expectations.  It possesses a title that could belong to a film; an aspect of pop culture that I have found has effected how I’ve formed many of my perceptions of the corporate life.  This self-portraiture series reveals both a fantasy and a pathetic reality.  Through sculpture, performance art, photography, and digital technology, I am attempting to visually demonstrate not what lies ahead for me in 25 years, but what lurks in the back of my mind and whispers to me nearly everyday: “money…power…tradition”.  While the fulfillment of this temptation appears at first to me as having glorious potential, I’ve discovered through this self-portraiture study, that there is also something tragic about “the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted”.