Edrian.Co

I never really felt comfortable in the fancy museums or galleries where art was designed to live. The hush-hush, the pristine white walls, the million-dollar price tags. I felt watched in those rooms — my presence became part of the exhibit, like I had to quiet myself and be small so I didn't disturb the sanctimony of the place. Fine art is a luxury reserved for the elite few who, like with everything else, get to decide what the next thing is and how we're supposed to consume it.

Dysclaim is a rejection of that. It's a space where you can make noise, where you can say and be whatever the fuck you want to be — and anyone can walk into it. The three pieces symbolize awareness, acceptance, and the way through. I always hate when people complain or bring up problems without solutions; that's not what this is. I wanted to provide something that felt like a way out. And I'm inviting everybody to talk about what any of it means — to you, or to me. The art is really just the invitation. The conversation is the thing. It's the real performance.

Each piece is adorned with found objects and little tchotchkes I've picked up throughout my life — I've always been obsessed with these trinkets: swap meets, yard sales, antique stores, even Hudson River driftwood. They're little pieces that take Americana and claim it back for everybody it was supposed to include. I'm not celebrating it. I'm repossessing it. Appropriating from the appropriators.

The paintings took shape over decades. They were stalled out for years at a time by fear and inertia, by dysregulation, by how disconnected I was from myself and my own creativity. They sat there and collected dust. And they watched all of it. They saw me at my darkest, all the way through the work and the healing. Today I'm the happiest and healthiest I've ever been in my adult life.

A lot of that darkness came from chasing the American dream — the corporate job, the white picket fence, the retirement plan, the insurance, the car, the vacations, everything you see people posting about on Instagram. I assimilated into a culture that never fit me, never felt right, and it tore me up from the inside. I didn't have the access, or the diagnosis, or the wherewithal to go seek any of this out. I had to find it for myself, after hitting rock bottom. It took me damn near nine and a half years and lots and lots of failures — but I found it. My healing and my growth are still in their infancy, in a way I'm really grateful for. I wake up every day curious and eager to learn more. But I've got enough of it now to come up for air, and I want to hand it to anybody who will take it. Not in a preachy way — in a collaborative way, a communal way, a generous way. Because a lot of people like me, from where I'm from, didn't have access to these things and aren't even aware they exist. Or if they are, they've been commodified — and most of them are narrated in white voices. It's hard to trust those voices. Sometimes it feels like they're speaking a foreign language.

I think dysregulation is the baseline now. It's the default setting. The status quo. And that's not an accident — that's by design. It's what happens when unchecked capitalism, unresolved colonialism, unreported racism, and a deep, deep imbalance in the whole system leave people behind. Most of us are running on scraps: after the forty-hour work weeks that barely pay the bills, the errands, the parenting, the family, the health, the social life — and in between all of it, the screens built to eat our attention. The human mind wasn't designed to take all of that and still thrive. So we're left with scraps. There's nothing left for each other. We're losing the art of being human.

Being tapped into our intuition — that inherent default software we're born with, that lives in our gut — it gets trained out of us. Indoctrinated out of us. To the point where we're not thriving or surviving. The food that's poisoning our bodies. The medicine that's mostly symptomatic treatment — we're not fixing root causes. The lack of emotional awareness and development, especially among men. The way we relate to our romantic partners, our friends, our communities, our families. All of it has taken a huge toll, and a big part of that is a lack of connection with each other. But another part is a lack of connection with yourself. The moment you start ignoring your gut, really young, it creates this divide inside — where every day we wake up and subscribe to a reality that somewhere deep down we still know just isn't right.

When I look around now, even the people who seem to have it all — I think they're suffering too. I think we're all suffering. Humans weren't meant to watch each other suffer in any capacity. The American dream, the middle class, all those parts of the American brand broadcast so proudly through the '60s and '70s, almost as a signal inviting people to come chase something more — it ended up being fake news.

This project is about making space for healing and for awareness. Not the commodified self-care bullshit kind. Not the shortcut, quick-fix, Instagram-algorithm kind. Stopping. Smelling the roses. Doing deep breathing. Connecting with yourself. Healing with community — with like-minded people and non-like-minded people. Developing a capacity for discourse. Finding solutions to problems collaboratively. Relearning the art of trusting your gut, your intuition, and your innate ability to connect with yourself and with others. Especially in the places, and with the people, who seem to have the least time and energy left to do it.

So come in, have a seat, have a glass of water, and let's chop it up about whatever you want to talk about. You've got my undivided attention for five minutes. I'll set a timer.