Biography
I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. I earned my M.F.A. from The School of Visual Arts in Photo, Video and Related Media and my B.A from Xavier University in Electronic Media. As a filmmaker, I work in experimental, narrative and documentary portraiture all focused on investigating desire and the human condition. My short videos and installations have screened internationally in festivals and galleries.
After working in various aspects of film and television, I settled into post-production. I am currently on the faculty in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA.
In graduate school, a professor called my sense of humor childish and that's true at least 2/3rds of the time.
News
9/2023 I'm sorry I'm late will screen in Bilbao, Spain in Bideodromo 2023.
Unkind Cut (short horror/comedy I edited) screenings upcoming at FilmQuest, Montevideo Fantastico FF, Wreak Havoc Horror FF, El Paso Film Festival, DC Shorts, Silicon Beach FF, Louisville FF, and Quibdó África Film Festival.
7/2023 Music video I edited for Young Eyes premiered on New Noise
Unkind Cut (short horror/comedy I edited) will premiere at LA Shorts Fest on July 27
2/2023 Watch The Sleeping Negro on MUBI starting February 2nd!
12/2022The Sleeping Negro (dir. Skinner Myers) won the Special Jury Award at the Diorama International Film Festival.
9/2022 My short film Helping Amy will screen at We Make Movies International Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 6th in Block 5: Cinecopia 1.
The Sleeping Negro (dir. Skinner Myers) has been nominated for the Best Diaspora Narrative Feature at the 2022 Africa Movie Academy Awards.
7/2022 A new installation you have just been murdered will be presented at UFVA in late July. Sound design by Rob Steel, score by Mike Puretz.
The Sleeping Negro plays another theatrical run at Lumiere Cinema at Music Hall in Los Angeles starting on July 24th.
Films I've Made
2022
you have just been murdered, Installation (projection mapping)
Revivification, Mutoscope Hologram Installation
2021
Helping Amy, Narrative Short
2019
MemoryDistrust, Holographic short stories
2018
The Story of Everything, NarrativeShort, 16 min.
Yellow Persona, 3-channel Video Installation, 13 min.
2014
Reunion, Narrative Short, 18 min.
2013
The Popcorn Kid, Documentary Short, 13min.
2012
Scarlet, Experimental Short, 5 min.
2011
Horns. Bells. Whistles. Documentary Short, 27 min.
2010
There’s No Reason to go back to Cincinnati, Experimental Short, 2 min.
The Promise Land, Documentary Short, 6:30 min.
2009
Stone Blind, Music Video, 2:34 min
No One Wants to Eat the Parsley, Documentary Short, 6 min.
2008
Automatic,Experimental Narrative, 30 min.
2007
13W, Documentary Short, 6min.
2006
Room 323, Experimental Short, 8 min.
2003
Car Wash, Experimental Short, 3 min.
Sacred Heart, Stop Motion, 4:30 min.
2001
Where the Road Turns Dark, Stop Motion Animation. 5 min.
Artist Statement
There is a constant battle between my desire to make beautiful images, and with expressing the darker themes lying underneath. If life is filled with contrast, I exploit it. Self- destruction is a sub-plot; making moving images is my way to subvert my own memory- tainted narratives.
I make work investigating desire and the human condition, weaving between documentary portrait, narrative and experimental modes. My own creative process always creates more questions than answers for me, resulting in rarely being satisfied with a single approach or result. One film leads to the next in an organic, but not particularly linear way. I am influenced by the idea of the “death-drive,” the explorations of the human experience, dark humor and the self-destructive search for the value in life.
Although I consider post-production my niche, the processes through which I work apply to all of the layers of filmmaking. If stratum is a layer within a structure, the structure is filmmaking, and the strata become the modes in which I work. My personal discontent stems my inability to limit the multimodal layers applied to my work.
Deconstructing and reconstructing images within a screen-space is related to the idea of the memory trace, or bits of memories engrained somewhere in our brains that won't let go. These fragments unconsciously resurface to change the way we perceive our realities. This process exists throughout out all of my pieces, as evidenced by framing, projections and/or lens transformations. Images create new and trigger old bits of memories. They not only inform each other, but they blend to reshape the meaning applied to visual stimuli and the traces themselves.
My goal is to find some sort of bridge to connect us to a larger oceanic/feeling of connection as people, connecting collective memories that may not have been destroyed. These are palliative narratives – my work explores the surface measures used to treat our conditions, but not the underlying causes. What is being said is rarely what is meant. Sound works against image, and in that struggle forms a deeper meaning. Strata and its Discontents.