ANTHROPIC COSMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE (APC) SERIES
Gallery Statement
A friend of mine is renovating his condo. When we walked through the ensuite bathroom, I noticed the ceiling had been left exposed—raw concrete framed by drywall dormers with pot lights and LED strips casting light upward. Spray-painted markings from the construction phase were still visible—likely measurements or instructions for HVAC or electrical. The kind of thing builders assume will be covered up and forgotten. But here it was, uncovered and oddly compelling.
My friend liked the idea of sealing it in—maybe even having another spray-paint artist respond to it. I asked if I could create something for the space instead. Something that would preserve those original late 1970’s markings but build on them. Not to erase them, but to respond—to treat them like a find. As if an alien civilization had left something behind and another species had discovered it, decided not to destroy it, and instead chose to co-exist and evolve the idea further.
That’s how this artwork came to be. It wouldn’t exist without my seeing the exposed ceiling, without those marks, without that moment—without a few random books on my shelf that, until then, hadn’t revealed their connection. It flirts with the Fermi Paradox—what if we have found evidence of another intelligence, and simply didn’t recognize it? And it echoes the Anthropic Cosmological Principle—the idea that something exists because the conditions allowed it to.
The series also draws from other forms of chaotic order: the dizzying energy of the pre-digital NYSE trading floors captured by Andreas Gursky, the structured randomness of nebulas and their proposed colour schemes in old space atlases, even the accidental discovery and evolution of alcohol. In each case, something basic becomes something layered—complex, unpredictable, and capable of meaning.
This is not correction or usurping. It’s continuation. It’s evolution.