Ed Porter
This new work speaks as much about process as politics. Certain pieces are conceived with a statement in mind which dictates the materials to be used and the structures to be created, while other pieces result from improvisational reactions to the materials and processes of creation. The process of embracing a structured approach and then reacting against that approach has become a theme of my work. This struggle is embedded in the work. Some pieces begin "from the ground up" with a plan, precise dimensions, and considered steps. As this process develops there is a need to react against it's rigidity and "just make something." That reaction takes the form of improvisational play with materials; the left-over materials from other projects that take on forms of their own.

In "Baghdad Green Zone: The Emerald City" the title refers, of course, to the city in the Wizard of Oz. "Emerald City" speaks to the element of self-delusion and fantasy that seems to be at the core of the American hope for the transformation of Iraq, as well as the attempt to create a secure facsimile of American landscape and culture within the middle of Baghdad. This piece depicts the infrastructure necessary to maintain a myth. In addition to this political statement, this title, and the title of another piece called "Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain," refers to my creative process. There is a structured approach to art-making in one piece, and a haphazard, improvisational method as it's opposite. Although this process of working may even represent some self-doubt, I believe it is nonetheless a necessary part of the way I work.

Some of this work also speaks to the meaning of "home." The emotional and physical landscape of "home" informs this work. There is the stereotypical form of a trailer, or the physical structure of a house used as the subject of a piece. Or the landscape of suburbia is employed to reflect an emotional landscape. This work speaks to the measure of protection a home provides from the outside world, or even a hint at what happens in a home when no one else can see.

Dimitri Kozyrev
The painting project series entitled Lost Edge focuses on the use of the word avant-garde and the meaning it bears in the military sense as well as the artistic sense.

In the Lost Edge series, modernist and constructivist methods of re-arranging pictorial space are used to reflect on what happened to the Avant-garde artists of the early Soviet Union. These artists, such as Malevich, Rodchenko, and Lissitzky, created some of the freest, most forward-looking art of the early twentieth century, but in short order were crushed by the growing Totalitarianism embraced by the Soviet government at the time.
This body of work reflects my contemplation of these distant events in an attempt to critically view the current state of affairs in both the military and artistic spheres.