study that was produced in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University, a controversial report with a high estimate of Iraqi dead, around 650,000 people, including people who might have died as a result of trauma that aggravated
health conditions. In the painting, roughly 24'x6', I am counting every touch of the brush as if it were an Iraqi victim of the occupation. The idea of trying to experientially quantify the magnitude of a war became compelling to me as I started to think about the seething masses of people on this planet and the unfathomable effects we have on each other and our environment.
I make somewhere between 8,000 and 16,000 marks per full work day. I've had to work a lot for money, haven't been in the studio consistently, and am hovering at about 200,000 marks right now. I've started to paint different shapes that relate to the theme of the work, only choosing objects that can also be quantified. For example, I have almost finished the five maps of Iraq that are placed throughout the painting. They are executed with 168,743 marks to correspond with the square mileage, the total geographical area of the country. Other symbolic and iconic objects with be included in this text based, process painting and they will also be quantified.
I hoped to perceive the gravity of such a large number of deaths and in taking on this project, I've begun to connect with how shameful it all is. The counting is painful, dull, repetitive and I find myself forgetting what number I'm on.
Sometimes I forget a thousand marks. Other times I imagine that I've counted more than I have. Some marks happen quickly. I imagine that the person behind that mark died abruptly. Other marks wind around for some time. Some are silent and others lunge and stab before they're done. The process has given me, above all, a time to reflect on the tragedy of Iraq and to wonder if there's a way for us through art, through education, through demonstration, to end this awful national pasttime.
