Crash! is an interpretation of the brevity of life where nature, memory, and the industrial machine violently collide. The work speaks directly to a distinctly Caymanian expression of ‘Pop’ by mapping a profound personal memory onto the island’s visual landscape of globalized development. Like the original 1960s Pop art movement, Crash! subverts high-art traditions by utilizing industrial materials and appropriating a seemingly mundane, yet tragic, everyday subject—the roadkill collision—for critical commentary. I draw inspiration from the high-gloss, synthetic Finish Fetish of the California West Coast scene, translating the aesthetic of the sleek, consumer machine—like the E-Type convertible and the TransAm I learned to drive on—into pigmented resin-coated plywood silhouettes.

While my method of utilizing resin-coated plywood draws a clear lineage to the material innovations of the 1960s California Finish Fetish artists like Billy Al Bengston, John McCracken, and Craig Kauffman, Crash! departs stylistically from their pursuit of flawless, high-gloss perfection. Unlike their sleek, often reflective surfaces that celebrated industrial sheen, my work consciously integrates a waxy matte resin finish coat to the plywood. This distinct choice of layering translucent pigment coats achieves what I refer to as milky finishes alongside vibrant and fluorescent colors. This painterly quality allows for a nuanced interplay of depth and surface, introducing a signature organic tactility and subtle light absorption that intentionally contrasts with the pristine, manufactured aesthetic of traditional Finish Fetish.

This material choice, with its vibrant, saturated finish, establishes the industrial force in direct, material contrast with the organic subject. The core narrative is a recurring, traumatic encounter on Grand Cayman’s East End highway: the clash between vehicle and the migrating land crabs. This is not merely an accident, but a tragic confrontation resulting with nature squandered, and not without a cost, where both parties are the afflicted. Crash! offers a commentary on contemporary socio-political issues, framing the flat tire caused by the crab’s shell as a kind of ecological karma and signaling the devastating inevitability of the collision between human development and vulnerable local ecosystems.