INK & Oil [X ray MATTER (road FLASH)], 2019

Employing the printing technique of collagraphy to make direct impressions of soda cans and other debris, and marking the asphalt-like ground of this work with tire tracks, Irving renders a kind of street scene. By using litter commonly found on city streets in his work, Irving seeks to imagine the ground as an arena for and about daily life—Black life, specifically. He states, “the ground is this infinite frame by which narratives and stories are told or understood or traversed; the objects embedded in the asphalt hold stories that aren’t getting told, they’re just getting built over and on top of.”