Formal Ware
An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, aware of all the relevant facts, would conclude that one's honesty, integrity, or fitness is compromised. Don't just avoid doing wrong — avoid looking like you might have. The inversion of this famous ethical rule may look like this: an appearance of propriety occurs when reasonable minds would rely on the fact that the person looks the role, despite all the relevant facts showing that one's honesty, integrity, or fitness is compromised. Appearance doesn't just reflect the substance, it actively cancels the obligation to have any.
Formal wear is the dress-code — it looks proper, composed, occasion-worthy, even elegant, and definitely important. In this display of propriety, the Formal Ware is dressed in decorative confidence like plumage over what is otherwise impractical utensils.
What is the surface? Dressed for the performance of ethical soundness, this confidence is paint-layer deep. The surface is busy and flamboyant, it is so superficial that it denies the utility of its practical use. The layers of paint surmount to hours of drawing a pattern, and then breaking the repetitive rhythm. It is never boring, I don't want to lose your curious eye, and I need to capture your distracted attention. Will you try to make sense of this? What will you see? Some people saw innards, others remembered their strangely comfortable dream of a thumb.
What ends up on the surface is not a single depiction — it's a record of my hand tracing a passage of my thoughts and recollections. It is not an image of a thought - it's what's left over from one. On occasion it will trap a piece of news at a particular time, a gesture or a phrase. The process is similar to automatic drawing, done as a reflex without planning. The design is intentionally random, like graffiti it accumulates input from different eyes to create a randomly cohesive image over time. Once fired, these doodles will be permanently frozen as evidence of this process.
What is the form? For me form is unimportant, it vaguely occupies a shape between the human parts. It is what is in the crack of your armpit, or in your tightly squeezed fist. I am looking for a shape bordering on unattractive. The “ugly’ is a curious concept for me, and it seems to be more certain than the “beautiful.” This contrast with the ornate surface makes it easier to decorate, because you are actively trying to improve on something concretely ugly. Decoration becomes an act of concealment. Can I pull it off, and make you admire this bulky form? Will you notice its hideous gravity?
2026.08.01