Artist Statement:

Through my research I am constructing a world, or way of seeing that I refer to as the Goober Dimension. The Goober Dimension is a transparent slime over our reality. It is hiding in plain sight, and to see it requires taking a close look. Once noticed this dimension creates gentle disruptions to the status quo and questions our truths.

I use media spanning painting, drawing, puppetry, sculpture, photography, and performance to bring this world to light. However, I believe that once one takes notice of the Goober Dimension, it can begin to seep into your experience of the everyday as well. Since starting this investigation, peers of mine have sent me photographic evidence of their own encounters with the Goober Dimension.

Goobers can be found in the in between and in the everyday. A Goober can be a floater in your eye. A Goober can live next to the crumpled up receipt in your pocket. I’ve seen a Goober emerge from his bean can shell and spend his day crawling and meandering about. I’ve caught a family of Goobers spending an afternoon together under the daffodils I planted early last winter. I’ve been under the surveillance of a Goober that clung all night to my bedroom window. A Ganzfeld hallucination might reveal itself to you in the form of a Goober. A daydream under the clouds might reveal itself to you in the form of a Goober. Look inside a haystack and you will find a Goober. Look inside yourself and you might find that there is a Goober in your skull pulling the strings.

The Goober Dimension locates humor, intimacy, and surreality in the everyday. Playing with this formula of concept I am able to share my world view. Presently, the state of the world feels absurd and overwhelming, just being on social media for a moment one can see graphic images of war crimes next to an image of a duck wearing a flower for a hat which is followed by an advertisement for the upcoming universal pictures film entitled “Cocaine Bear”. Despite this absurd uncomfortability, I feel that humor, intimacy, and surreality are tools that can be used to cope, build community, and make sense of our world.