Ka-boooom!!!

After my son was born in 2015 I began moving old boxes of my childhood toys from my mother's house in Virginia to my home in Kyoto, Japan. My childhood multitudes-- Transformers, Star Wars figurines, toy soldiers, baseball cards, Hot Wheels, and much else sentimental remnants-- became my son's to command, interpret, and imagine. Childhood interest in toys lasts only so long and it is with some sadness that my son has seemingly lost all interest over the past year, baseball and manga now ruling his attention and ideas. 

Ka-Boooom!!! is a last hurrah for my son's (and what was once my own) playthings. The images herein are all photograms, made in a color darkroom with toys, cutouts, rocks, and other ephemera carefully arranged in total darkness, requiring extensive experimentation to get things right. The title Ka-Boooom!!! is an homage to Roy Lichenstein's dyptich painting, "Whaam!" as I recognize the great Pop Artists of the 1960s as the project's aesthetic and spiritual forebears.