January 8-30, 2016

Heuristic Defenses

We are all defensive creatures who need security to develop purposeful lives. In an attempt to look objectively at the structures and mechanisms erected in the mind and physical world, my work traverses the superficial argument of defense politics and global security to place the viewer in a moment of self and social questioning. Defense mechanisms, naturally and socially fashioned, allow the individual to find his or her role in society and reach a level of cognitive equilibrium of self-worth and purpose. In turn, a society that upholds the ideal of a community of free and fulfilled citizens must create the physical structures which allow this work to take shape. My work becomes a physical representation of the often disregarded link between the individual struggle to protect the Self in its constant state of flux and change, and the communal obligation to prevent physical harm.

Jack Warner is an  former Marine and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a B.A. in Studio Art and Art Education. He currently teaches Drawing and Design in a Montgomery County public school and has been accepted to the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University.