RAE • “THESE DAZE”  • 2019 • New York City

"These days, it’s hard to unplug and even harder to ignore when so much is at stake. These days, it’s easy to feel like we’re in a daze...”

[New York City, November 14 - December 10, 2019] - From plastics to politics, to be apart of society these days means accepting the fact that things unwanted will inevitably find their way into our internal systems. For Brooklyn artist RAE and his latest body of work, “These Daze”, the feeling of social despair, circular motion and chaos reign supreme. His frenetic, paintings and found-object sculptures, mostly made from plastic waste, are an affirmation of the times we live in. Class structure, marginalization, patriotism, who fits where? RAE continues to search for answers inside the world of his mixed media, “action-like” paintings only to find himself coming back to the same question: “How can we rise above it all”?

For RAE, it means not forgetting where you came from or at the very least acknowledging the attempts being made to separate us, gaslight us, compartmentalize us and track us. It can also mean the afterlife, a different planet or period of time or the fact that the only way out for some is risk, chance or luck.

This current state of societal flux and uncertainty is also represented in the play between boldness of lines and the unsteadiness of others. The contrast between shine and matte, and the virtual “melting pot” of materials made up of inks, enamels, gold leaf and colors that pop, are juxtaposed with more muted tones, keeping in line with some of the more somber themes portrayed in RAE’s work. His figures and thoughts make attempts to be a bit more literal at times, only to soon recede behind an intended “dazed” blurring and whitewashing of imagery and text.

For RAE’s three-dimensional pieces, collecting discarded items from the streets has always been a medium source, but this time his focus was on materials that reflect our “throw away” culture and the risks and rewards they symbolize. Dice, shopping bags, lost jewelry and pop-color bits of plastic once thought to have little purpose left but to be added to a landfill, are used to tell stories of people’s dreams, desires, impulses and struggles. These emotions mirror the way in which RAE painstakingly and meticulously create his sculptural pieces, reclaiming scraps of wood, pounding metal into shapes, melting plastic and assembling it all together using hundreds of tiny nails.

For RAE, “These Daze” will soon pass. How we process it will be based on who we were before and how we want things to be going forward.