Walliecamp
Modular Epic Landscape
Walliecamp started as a hybrid painting / backdrop that covered the three walls of my studio at SVA's Art Practice department. My impulse had been to create a diorama for myself, to stage myself inside an image of a stereotypical desert landscape of the American West. Through the use of this imagery, I wanted to investigate constructions of the American Dream as it relates to labor, wealth, technology and quests for spiritual satisfaction. In other words: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The question became, what happens inside this space? Is it a painting? Is it a backdrop? Historically, this distinction is key, differentiating the complete view, the “window on a world” that is the painting from the performative or theatrical space established by the backdrop. In a sense, backdrops can be paintings, that is, they are often rendered in paint, but paintings are not backdrops.
I started holding “campsite parties” in my studio such as The Gold Rush Party and The Kool Aid Drinking Party, where everyone drank from a restyled Kool-Aid bottle and then played dead. During the Gold Rush Party a soundtrack of pop music that mentions gold was played and I guided participants on a tour of SVA's Chelsea building holding mirrors to their chins so that they appeared to be walking on the ceiling.
"Telling Fortunes" at The Walliecamp Fortune Factory
Walliecamp: Modular Epic Landscape. Acrylic on canvas, 24' x 8.5'
Walliecamp: Modular Epic Landscape. Acrylic on canvas, 24' x 8.5'
Props for "The Kool Aid Drinking Party" staged at The School of Visual Arts, 2013
Invitations for "campsite parties"
Walliecamp: Modular Epic Landscape. Acrylic on canvas, 24' x 8.5'
Walliecamp installed in the windows of The Dirt Palace in Providence, RI.
"Fortune Phones" 2013. Inkjet on paper. 3x5.5"
"Telling fortunes" at "The Fortune Factory"