Six years ago, I felt trapped in a sprawling suburb. Excavators became my visual symbol for a lack of community design, what seemed a greedy gobbling of every last stretch of farm and prairie. I began photographing the excavators and painting the photographs. I came to obsess over the patina, the shape. Giant devouring dinosaurs.
We escaped suburban life to an adventure in Japan. We were sent to Komatsu. In Japan, they're called "power shovels." Purple, teal, green power shovels. I saw a power shovel painted like a dinosaur skeleton.
Still now, my kids and I yell "power shovel!" when we see one, with an enthusiasm unrivaled by Mike Mulligan himself. Right back here in the same suburb, where we now enjoy living.
These are encaustic paintings, which is pigment in beeswax, the most permanent of any paint because it is airtight. I like the irony of using a media that can last longer than an era of ill-planned subdivisions. These particular power shovels are in various yoga poses, meditating on the current state of the landscape.
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