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If you’re looking for some chill to take the sting out of all this heat and humidity, look no further than this revisit of the icy ‘PVRTD‘ project from 2018. Filled with wintry scenes, covered in snow and ice, and shot through with the frozen dagger of unblunted hatred, there is little that is warm or fuzzy about ‘PVRTD’.

Following my final tour and the colorful grandeur of delusional madness, the world took a decidedly dark turn after 2015, and for my first new project in three years, I wanted to do something reflective of the somber era, and the rise and revelation of more hatred than some of us realized was still present in our country. ‘PVRTD’ wasn’t about a perversion of a sexual nature, but rather the perverted ways racism, homophobia and ethnocentrism have ingrained themselves in almost every single aspect of our world.

As disturbing as some of the images were, that was entirely the point. Designed to draw the reader in with a gradual slow beginning of winter scenes and stark black-and-white photography, ‘PVRTD’ locks the door behind you before you realize it’s not a world in which you want to be.

There was also a contradictory sense of calm in the winter-themed project, something deceptively soothing about the photos as they whirled past as if tossed into an arctic blast. A chilly remoteness was inherent in the themes – and I was afraid that it would translate poorly to the project. It was absolutely necessary to maintain such a distance for my own mental well-being; the world had gone dark enough (who knew it would get so much darker) and I was genuinely afraid of letting this one get into my headspace. To combat that, and to bring a subtle and unseen thread of warmth to the whole thing, I enlisted the photographic aid of my favorite people: Andy, Suzie, Kira, and my brother – each of whom helped take photos for those scenes in which I played a part.

The promotional blitz of provocative and sexually-suggestive images was designed to titillate and tease, deliberately intended to confuse and pose the possibility that ‘PVRTD’ would be an exploration of sexual peccadilloes and erotic perversions. A bait and switch of the most shameless sort, with no apologies whatsoever for anyone who came looking for sex and skin and found a fully-clothed statement on the deteriorating state of our country and world.

‘PVRTD’ also marked a return to a purely photographic project, where only the photos tell the story – no narrative or expository writing to give a hint of what’s happening. Rendered in shades of gray, its colorless consistency lent a subtlety that belied some of its images, a softer take at odds with the harshness of its motifs. There is only one object in full color – a pink triangle that blazes in horrifying fashion near the very end. It is a sign of doomed hope, but hope nonetheless. That hope dissipates in the flames of a cross, and the bleak, forlorn landscape of grays that insidiously works its way around your throat, beautifully suffocating the care and expression from your eyes.

{See the entire ‘PVRTD’ project here. Also see ‘StoneLight‘, ‘The Circus Project‘, ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea‘ and ‘A 21^stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour‘, and ‘Bardo ~ The Dream Surreal‘, and ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star’.}