The Melee Series reflects a confluence of my 28 years plus experience studying Taijiquan, Baguazhang, and the underlying science of Qigong with my visual arts. The ethereal transparency of the images speaks of the meditative aspect of martial arts training. For me it refers directly to the Taoist Water Method, which seeks to feel not visualize inside of oneself. The grace of the motion reveals the intimacy of the dance of life and death.

I use a proprietary iterative fractal process to blow up my video images to arbitrarily large dimensions to achieve continuous tones without pixelation. I have printed a few of copies of the series on 11” x 8.5” matte paper and 12” x 9” watercolor paper. I would like to eventually show the series on 24” x 35” Hahnemuehle Etching Paper.

The underlying corpus of video is large enough to produce trillions of still compositions. Additionally, color backgrounds can be added and color schemes can be permutated. On the other end of the spectrum, serendipity in the printing process has produced several attractive one of the kind prints.

I plan to accompany to the melee digital prints with a video installation that sets a mix of the source video to an audio collage of bebop jazz by DJ Firehorse. Additionally, I plan a live performance with DJ Firehorse and guest jazz musicians. Finally, I would like to stage a couple of live martial arts demonstrations.