streets disciple - havoc

Mixed media on canvas. 36” x 36”. 2005.

Havoc. Nasty, Prodigy, and the Street's Disciple.

This series is inspired by the music of Nasir Jones, specifically his 2004 release, the Streets Disciple.  The images that I derived from this album reflect the raw rhythms and echoes that I found reoccurring while making sense of his lyrics. At the same time, the process of painting these pieces was motivated by my love/hate relationship with living in the city – the concrete jungle, the urban expanse, the hustle and the hunger.  I incorporated silhouettes of trees and branches to play on the notion that the city’s concrete architecture has a home-grown feeling the way trees and plant life do for most mammals.  Indeed, this imagery was fueled by my frustrations with man-gardens: with the idea that we can customize nature and still manage to apprehend its intrinsic value.

The figure of the ubermensch, or Messenger (Rasool), has always played a vivid role in my work. The faces herein reflect the presence of these spiritual leaders, guiding me with their hard gaze and immovable stature.  The transcendent language of the gaze mutes competitors, driving the renegade to maintain his edge amongst all the city’s distractions, impending scams and blood-sucking capitalists. It’s the gaze of streets disciple, caught in his paradoxical role robin the ‘hood for goods misunderstood, serving his soul with flows only masters know, preserving the histories of his people untold, unafforded, denied and unapplied.

ja.1n.us 2007