Image: SO RICH
Gold decorative embellishments (as seen in the Oval Office) on a dumpster.
72 × 48 × 72 inches
2025
My current body of work explores the fact that we are now deeply entrenched in a new “Gilded Age.” This term, repeatedly mentioned in US presidential speeches in 2025, historically references a time in American history between 1860 to 1890. While it is meant to signal an idealistic return to a time of prosperity, the reality is much more complex and dark.
HISTORY
During the first “Gilded Age,” the US experienced massive upheaval. Wealthy businessmen — John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and others — were able to amass great wealth using exploitative business practices in their industries. In addition, they were ruthless in their treatment of the land — further perpetuating the caustic idea that man and nature are not only separate, but also that man has dominion over it (Manifest Destiny).
The term “Gilded Age” came to be known in 1873 when Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published their novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Gilding is when a thin layer of gold is applied over a cheaper, less precious surface. Their novel was a critique of wealth accumulation and exploitative practices, highlighting the fake aristocracy that barely covered the criminal behavior hiding just below the surface.
Image: LAND GRAB
Gold decorative embellishments (as seen in the Oval Office) photographed in Rocky Mountain National Park.
2025
CURRENT EVENTS
Ironically, and as if made for TV, the leader of the US has once again been promoting this ideology. Decisions have, quite literally, metastasized the same ever-widening wealth gap and natural resource extraction that embodied the first Gilded Age.
Now, however, the stakes are higher: climate change is upon us, mass migration due to conflict and dwindling resources is becoming a political reality, and ecosystems are collapsing. In 2025, the gilding has taken the form of corporations (AI, surveillance, tech, extraction, pharmaceuticals) showing incomprehensible profits — pushing them further away from the reality that the rest of the globe faces.
In the original Gilded Age, the “robber barons” (wealthy elites) gave back in the form of philanthropy. However, today’s elites enjoy the collective social mania Guy Debord warned of in his 1967 book, Society of the Spectacle. The dichotomy between the humble, fragile wonders of nature and the gilded, gawdy, distraction-extraction culture has never been more glaring.
Image: LAND GRAB
Gold decorative embellishments (as seen in the Oval Office) photographed in Rocky Mountain National Park.
2025
MY WORK
Many pieces in this body of work utilize the same gilded baroque embellishments found all over the current White House. Most of these embellishments were purchased at my local Home Depot, and the “gilded” look was re-created with presumably the same method: a can of $8 spray paint.
The works also encorporate natural elements, such as stumps found on the land where I grew up in Colorado, sawdust from a local sawmill, moss, and the smell of petrichor. These elements represent the relentless evolution of life on earth, as well as its ability to erase the past.
For SO RICH, the embellishments are fastened to dumpsters and closed storefronts. For LAND GRAB, they have been photographed while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Manifest Destiny
Plastic, spray paint, glue, American flag, flag pole.
84 × 24 × 90 inches
2025
According to US flag code, the flag has many rules. In practice, they are more suggestions and traditions; they are not enforced by law. Even flag burning is protected under the First Amendment, as ruled in 1990 by the US Supreme Court (due, in part, to the pivotal work by the artist Dread Scott).
The flag represents a “living country” and thus is considered a “living thing.” Sometimes, it is treated with utter respect and dignity. Other times, we hardly notice it being used to sell hot dogs, toilet paper, and beer — all of which are against flag code.
The flag means patriotism to some, and patriotic betrayal to others. It means hope and possibility to some, and corporate greed to others. It means freedom to some, and oppression, genocide, and hypocrisy to others.
I created this work considering the paradox of “patriotism” that the flag embodies, seeing it as both a personified main character and a simultaneous bystander throughout its history. Respectfully, I did not want to harm, tear, or burn this flag. I did, however, create an uncomfortable situation. This work points to the historic vein of entitlement that has — in the new Gilded Age — grown even more gruesomely vulgar.
The original title of this work was When You’re a Star, They Let You Do It.
new work: the gilded age