In support of my application to the competition into the ProArts 2 x 2 2011 exhibition:

I am interested in the way that privilege (gender, skin color, sexual preference, physical and mental ableness) makes it impossible, or at least very difficult, for people with it to have an empathic understanding of people who lack it. This is not so much a two way street. It is a matter of survival for those without such privilege to have a deep understanding of those who control their world. 

Along with this empathic failure is a failure of imagination to see  beyond this world of obscene wealth and obscene poverty to one where everyone has enough, a possibility that seems obvious to anyone who is willing to raise the most elementary questions about the status quo. What is the nature of this trance that makes people think that domination and possessionism feel good? And how to break through the trance of the dominated, that numb despair?

There is a moment when consciousness shifts, when one person realizes that the world is much larger and potentially more wonderful than he had imagined, and another realizes that the cause of her suffering is not her own defects, and both begin to realize their creative potential. We are living in such a moment. These moments have come before, but the lure of privilege and the threat of violence have pulled apart alliances that might have created a new world. 

I am not an artist by training. Art came to me in the midst of a career as a physician, struggling with questions of illness and health, moving from the molecular and cellular to the social and spiritual in my understanding, finally realizing that medicine, powerful as it is, stands in that place of privilege and does not see the larger world. This realization led me to art. 

My goal as an artist is to contribute to the awakening that must occur if our species is to avoid extinction and achieve health, security and happiness for all.  I believe it is essential to remind people that history teaches us, and current events demonstrate, that we must be ready for violent resistance to even the most modest, sensible and humane proposals. But it is equally essential to hold the vision that in that new world, while both medicine and loneliness as we know them will be obsolete, art will continue to be the window to a still larger world.