in this work, an image clipped from an unnamed publication from the 60s is presented scaled up in woodcut form. The word LEARNING stamped above the picture of a young hippie man or woman wearing traditional American graduation ceremony garb complete with flowing long hair and large "far-out" glasses. The woodblock method has reduced the image to stark black oils atop a brown paper. In all my work, I like to play with contrasts. By presenting this image without context in a stripped down, laid bare form, I want each viewer to take from it what they want. Is this an optimistic image? College campuses served as a place of hope in the era, like the founding of the Students for a Democratic Society in 1960 and our maybe subjects "rose tinted glasses" drive this idea further. Or does the image lend itself to a more ominous interpretation? Maybe referencing the Kent State massacre of 1970, brought into more focus with the skewed registration marks made by the printing process and the ghostly thousand mile stare of its subject. When I find an image that I'm attracted to that I'd like to reappropriate for my own work, I never question what it is that draws me to it, I just know when it's there. Like in all my work, I turn to social movements and their ephemera from the past to tell me more about our state and our future. (text by the artist, mail by Mario Mazzoli, 12 October 2021)