The Jesus Show

I decided about a year ago that I would create a crucifixion sculptural piece using televisions and I have been working on it on and off until it was finally finished recently. This is the result.

Really horrible picture quality, will post a better one when I have it.

The 6 televisions I used were all accumulated during the time I was working as a volunteer at the local Goodwill. I loved working there because of all the random stuff I constantly got to go through. I was hired to work there a few months ago and it is a great job for me because I find so much stuff that I can use for art related purposes! For example I take old frames that are about to get thrown out or get old canvases to paint over. Sometimes I find paintbrushes and occasionally the odd art book.

Anyway, I started to work on the sculpture beginning with the head. I took out the screen and replaced it with a wood carving of Jesus' face that had been done to look similar to the Shroud of Turin. I then gave it a layer of wax and buffed it out and the head was finished.

At this point I decided to name it "The Jesus Show"

I wanted to replace each television screen with a different medium, so the second TV that I worked on was an engraving on a sheet of steel. The engraving was of a male ribcage that I found in an anatomy book. The ribcage engraving was the part of the sculpture that took me the longest.

I added vinegar to the steel to cause it to rust because I wanted to make it look more weathered

The third television was the right hand one. I replaced the screen with 2 pieces of clear plexiglass and melted them to fit. Between the two pieces of plexiglass I put an old x-ray of my hand from when it was broken a few years back. After this I installed a light bulb in the TV so that it would shine through and illuminate x-ray.

I broke it in a drunken accident. I should come up with a better story.

The next television that I constructed was with a large photograph of my legs that was put behind one of the original TV screens after I managed to smash the back off of it. I accidentally put a huge crack down the front of the screen, which ended up looking really cool so I left it. The photograph was taken by Samantha Burgess, who is a fantastic photographer and my girlfriend.

This was cropped quite a bit to fit inside the screen

I then cut out a stencil of the male pelvic bones for the 5th television and painted it onto a piece of masonite fit to the screen.

I have been really into stencils lately. Must have made at least a dozen different ones.

The 6th television screen was replaced with thick, opaque, white plexiglass and then heated up to a melting temperature with a torch before pushing my left hand into it to make an impression of it. Although not a very safe idea it worked out well enough. It wasn't as clearly defined as I would have liked so I made a hand print in black paint on the other side to more clearly indicate the shape.

I had to create this one very quickly because I was running out of time to finish the piece before the show.

While I had been working on all the televisions I was simultaneously constructing a frame for it out of the steel of old bed frames. I had to get a second set of frames because I messed up on the first one's cuts so bad, causing myself a lot of unnecessary work. I had to grind the paint off of all the frames and then cut them to size for a second time. I did not do much of the welding because I was short on time to complete the project and my studio teacher Ron Milton did it in half the time it would have taken me. After they were all welded together I had to do some more grinding and then bolted the televisions to the frame with the help of my friend Chris Withenshaw, a talented sculptor and painter.

The whole reason I wanted to make a crucifix out of televisions was because I feel that television as a media has become a religion onto itself. People idolize television and what they see on it. Reality TV stars are a good example. The sculpture was not intended as just a religious piece, but more of a social commentary. Although Jesus is a religious figure, as a non-religious person, I feel he is comparable to an outdated, reality TV star. I was raised in a Catholic family, attended Catholic schools my entire life until very recently, and I thought a crucifixion piece would be a fitting reference to my upbringing. This is why I tried to incorporate as much of myself into the sculpture as possible, from the x-ray of my bones to my hand print to the photo of my legs.

The final addition to the work that I included at last minute due to the suggestion of my friend Taylor Parkinson was adding a VHS cassette labeled "THE JESUS SHOW" into the VCR player of the highest television.

Although the piece did not sell at the Bealart Year End Show, I did not really expect it to. It did however receive a lot of positive feedback and I was satisfied with the final result.

This sculpture led my mother to ask me "Are you supposed to be a conceptual artist or something?"