UV: What's going on in this photograph? Tell us a little about your project.
NS: This is a photo of a stucco wall covered with paint. I think the wall was originally yellow and someone decided it would be bold to make a statement and write their name on it. In a state of abject panic, the owner of the building consequently felt compelled to cover the tag despite the fact that he didn't have a color to match the original.

"War on Graffiti" started as an exercise in composition, but after taking about 40 pictures of badly painted walls, I started to see that if you look more closely at something, you start to see something else.

UV: The process of how this image came to be, involved a number of aesthetic judgments by multiple parties. What kind of dialog do you hope to bring about by creating a piece like this?
NS: As with all wars, I see the war graffiti as more of a struggle over territory than a series of rational judgments. I see the combatants as one party of taggers struggling to claim the streets in which they live as their own and another party of building owners working to keep a hold over what they feel is their rightful property. Like the "War on Drugs" and more recently, the President's "war on terror" the results are unending states of destruction and conflict with no one emerging as a clearly defined victor.

And, like the Bush administration's fervent determination to bomb Iraq into oblivion, I don't see there being any hope of there being much of any kind of dialog.

UV: Do you think abstraction can have a valuable role in everyday life?
NS: I see abstraction as having more of an inevitable role in every day life. At least, it seems that way to me. I see my entire existence as a series of abstractions. For instance, let's say you want to buy a newspaper. You put a quarter in the machine. You get your paper. but really, who says the quarter is worth anything? It's just a piece of metal stamped into a round shape. What is value, anyway? Who says the paper is news? Who's news is it? What do these symbols that we call the alphabet represent? Anything? Ugh, I hate questions like this. I could go on forever.

Maybe it's a reflection of my own sense of alienation, but it seems like we all have learned to accept these things at face value without stopping to ask ourselves why we perceive the world in the way that we do. Personally, I spend most of my time feeling like I'm wandering around in a world that wasn't created for me.

UV: If everybody's life was a box of crayons what colors would be in your pack?
NS: As many as possible, but I'm partial to metallics.