While working on a book about California's most giant artificial body of water, the Salton Sea, I came across loads of abandoned dolls that have rotted in the extreme heat and sunshine. Some of these dolls would scare most children and a few adults. The morbid quality they possess is what makes them attractive to me. The faces of these dolls have burned in the hot sun, appearing to look like exposure to a nuclear disaster. Other dolls have the telltale signs of a haircut from a child's hand. The more expensive porcelain dolls have cracks in the face and are wearing once elaborate Victorian clothing, now tattered and torn, making them appear to have age and seem like a tiny old human. They bring back memories of torturing my sister's dolls when I was a young boy, as kids often do..
Found at East Jeasus
Discarded remains of a talking doll left to decay in the hot sun.
Burned face doll with knitted wool clothing sporting a mohawk.
Sally with razor-wire that is creating a shadow on her face.
Found at East Jesus
Strawberry, worn and tattered on a couch spring wire.
I kept finding this guy in different locations around the Salton Sea on different trips, very creepy.
I made many trips to the Salton Sea and found these two first at an abandoned liquor store and later in an abandoned warehouse, (now with a graffiti tag on the bald dolls forehead) where I took this image.
Creepy victorian doll behind razor wire that is creating a shadow on her face.
Two dolls found out in East Jesus, Salton Sea one with a fried face from the sun.
These two were found on a shelf in the East Jesus Library.
I found this doll outside an abandoned liquor store just laying around with a hat.
Prairie Girl was nailed to the inside of a wooded box in East Jesus.
Baby Doll hanging from shirt hooked to razor wire.
This couple was attached to the dashboard of a VW Bus converted into an art sculpture.
It seemed everywhere I turned there was another similar-looking doll to appear as if a ghostly image.
These doll heads were installed in the East Jesus Library
I imagine the preemie cabbage patch doll turning to salt when the fried-faced doll kisses its head.
Part of an installation in East Jesus, this doll and die were on a grill
Decaying doll found in East Jesus that was balding from the sun but still had curls in the back, the ultimate decay doll mullet.
Religion, mainly Christianity, has become a horrible caricature of itself. The message of goodness and loving one another has become replaced by hate and exclusion. Those of faith have their own version of their god’s word, and now many justify their own “sinful” behavior as rational.
In this project, I take “white American” Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and God and pixelate their images to represent the blurred likeness of what religion has become, especially in America, and how it has become a political figure. I chose not to show a middle eastern Jesus, which would be geographically correct, to underline the racism at the heart of American Christianity.
Absurdly, I also pair comic book-like characters with religious and folk-art kaleidoscope backgrounds to mimic the mockery nature that mega-church leaders and politicians have become under the guise of being evangelical. The image pairings do not seem right, maybe a little off or out of place, which is how I see modern religion. Right-wing politicians have taken over as TV evangelists with the message to their constituents or congregations, a made-up mockery of the faith and using years of racism and sin as the backbone of a moral message that seems to be rooted in roguish ways.
Being a gay artist, I use the rainbow flag as laser beams that portray the painful hate the evangelicals seer into their follower’s minds as a means to repulse them of gays, people of color, or those that are different than themselves. Simultaneously, the lasers also represent casting rays of love, depending on how the viewer interprets the image.
At some point, It became a God-given right to own an assault-style weapon in a fusion of religion and gun ownership. Pixel Jesus represents that blurred vision of religion nowadays.