Abstraction like an oil slick

In This Skin is a series of songs that will explore our ongoing relationship to notions of fate and mortality. Accompanying the aural elements will be still and video images of stagings and performance piecesthat when viewed as a whole will—because of my choice of forms—have the appearance of a melodramatic narrative but, upon closer inspection, will reveal abstraction spreading like an oil slick....

A grant will allow me to build upon my previous practice, such as 2001's Irresistible, and develop a new language of material skills with which to delineate loss and love.

—From "Jessica Simpson's Grant Application," by Brian Joseph Davis, in Portable Altamont (Coach House, 2005)