adolescence is such a sweet, fleeting thing, but no, it is not wasted on the young, 2026
wood, wood glue, nails, TV, headphones, hand-drawn animation, willow charcoal, pillow
off-page 2026 | May 21-31, 2026
adolescence is such a sweet, fleeting thing, but no, it is not wasted on the young explores the relationship between writing and the nexus of artistic practice: the fleeting moments of confidence and more often self-doubt, the cyclical nature of deletion, re-animation, erasure and scratching out of the word, the meditative swirls of repetition in discovering the right combination of words, images, melodies, notes, forms, and content… Rather than view this as the hidden underbelly of artistic practice and scaffolding that underpins a completed work, this work seeks to confront and uncover the conditions that generate knowledge within the act of writing and art making.
The work is also part of an ongoing exploration into the role of the written word within visual art, specifically interrogating how the role of the word changes when divorced from the page. Do we ‘read’ the content of word(s) in a similar manner to a literary context, or does the word embody a more emotive and ephemeral semiotic function within the assemblage of an artwork?
The work was created for off-page 26, a development programme leading to exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland, exploring themes of the poetic visual/visual poetry.
my friend casey came to scotland a handful of days before install and the exhibition opening, and made a beautiful film documenting the creation of this work and what i was thinking about leading up to the installation of the project. it captures the atmosphere and context out of which this work came to fruition, but also the course of our friendship since my leaving new york. a huge thank you to casey.
installation views
images credit: Lauren McDougall