Suspended Narratives
Tree House Robot Block Head Cowboy Rides Again features one of my signature Treehouse Robot Block Head figures riding through surreal waves within a psychedelic portal. The painting marked a breakthrough in my return to incorporating these recurring characters into my work, reconnecting a longstanding personal mythology with my evolving painting practice.
I first developed the Treehouse Robot Block Head figures around 2010 for an installation in which I constructed them from scrap wood and discarded materials. Since then, they have remained part of my visual vocabulary, serving as still-life props in my drawing classes and recurring subjects in the spontaneous drawings I make from memory or intuition. Over time, these figures have taken on the persona of cowboys, adopting a distinctly Western character.
Perhaps this transformation reflects my own experience of growing up, living, and working along the edge of the Great Plains and the Black Hills, where the skies are expansive and personalities can be just as outsized. In this painting, the cowboy becomes a kind of mythic protagonist, navigating an unstable landscape that merges the familiar with the fantastical. The swirling currents, luminous geometric forms, and surreal atmosphere suggest a passage between realities, where the boundaries between memory, imagination, and lived experience begin to dissolve.
The Western cowboy has long occupied the role of the American hero, embodying independence, resilience, and the promise of adventure. Through my own peculiar, robot-headed interpretation of this archetype, I find myself considering what it means to become a hero—not necessarily through grand gestures, but through the ongoing process of navigating an uncertain world and inventing one's own mythology along the way.