Michael Stickrod

Primetime, Brooklyn, NY

Peace Keeper brings together carved wooden fighter planes made by Michael Stickrod’s father with neon, found materials, and an enlarged photograph Stickrod took on a trip to India in 2000. The work folds family history into the visual language of military power, connecting handmade objects from the family archive to his father’s experience in the Air Force during the Vietnam era.

Frames from a scanned film of Stickrod with his son were printed and adhered onto metal with an orange backing, turning the moving image into a fixed, glowing photographic object. Peace Bone, a seven-foot Styrofoam and gesso sculpture, contains fluorescent light, mirrors, driftwood, and the broken fixed fin from a surfboard that injured Stickrod while surfing when he was young.

The works move between father and son, memory, injury, reproduction, and the transmission of images and objects across generations.

Peace Keeper (2013) exhibition view
Peace Keeper, detail (2013) Wood, acrylic paint, canvas, neon light, archival print, frame, 28 x 27 x 5.5 in (71 x 69 x 14 cm)
Orange Glow, Hands, (2013) Archival print from 8mm film scan dry-mounted on Aluminum, solid orange Archival print dry-mounted on backside, 53 x 34 in (135 x 86 cm)
Orange Glow, Hands, (2013) detail
Peace Keeper (2013) exhibition view
Peace Bone (2013) Styrofoam, gesso, glue, airbrush paint, florescent light, drift-wood, surfboard fin, mirrors, 2 x 2 x 7 ft (61 x 61 cm x 2 m)
Peace Bone (2013) detail