Bullets & Buttons

Bullets & Buttons entered my work in 1999 in Talking Back, a solo exhibition created four months after the murder of my brother. The installation suggested a streetscape and appeared alongside my large paintings filled with fury.

Twenty years later, these materials resurfaced in Loss. Redemption. Grace., an exhibition held at EBD4. In remembrance of the twenty-fifth anniversary, I created American Punch by placing spent shells within a crystal punch bowl—an object traditionally associated with celebration and gathering.

Through sculpture, photography, and drawing, this body of work reflects on our complicated relationship with weapons in American culture—our attraction to them, our fear of them, and the lives forever altered or ended by their use.