In my paintings from 2002-2014, the floral and textual patterns, along with the silhouettes of familiar still-life objects, are doubled, flipped, and rotated on a variety of stretched support materials, which range from the nearly total transparency of clear plastic, to the nearly complete opacity of black-out cloth. I often painted on both the back and front of these materials, foregrounding their physical qualities, and making the relationship between recto and verso a significant element in the paintings.
Echoing these works, objects in my still-life drawings are frequently repeated and reversed through the use of mirrors included in the arrangements, or in the form of shadows cast by candles and other light sources, or, in the case of the paper stencils (some of the same stencils I used to make my paintings), by situating them in such a way that their two sides are visible to the viewer at the same time. In several instances, the objects are shown in motion or active in some way that contrasts with and makes one more acutely aware of the static nature of the drawings themselves, giving rise to alternating experiences of watching and looking.
My paintings since 2015 are somewhat more playful in appearance than my drawings and earlier paintings, but they are no less deliberate. In these pieces, I focus a great deal on figure/ground and image/object interactions. Their saturated colors and cartoonish shapes create paradoxical spaces and layers that variously emphasize and belie the literal, physical qualities of painting.
All three bodies of work are highly self-reflective, and they question the meaning and mechanisms of pictorial self-reflection. Many of my pictures simultaneously affirm and transgress their own defining features (edges, surfaces, spaces, views, and times); asserting these features, but often by exceeding them somehow. As such, the works exhibit tense or indeterminate boundaries, and thus their reflections upon themselves and the conventions of their mediums are necessarily and provocatively incomplete.
Echoing these works, objects in my still-life drawings are frequently repeated and reversed through the use of mirrors included in the arrangements, or in the form of shadows cast by candles and other light sources, or, in the case of the paper stencils (some of the same stencils I used to make my paintings), by situating them in such a way that their two sides are visible to the viewer at the same time. In several instances, the objects are shown in motion or active in some way that contrasts with and makes one more acutely aware of the static nature of the drawings themselves, giving rise to alternating experiences of watching and looking.
My paintings since 2015 are somewhat more playful in appearance than my drawings and earlier paintings, but they are no less deliberate. In these pieces, I focus a great deal on figure/ground and image/object interactions. Their saturated colors and cartoonish shapes create paradoxical spaces and layers that variously emphasize and belie the literal, physical qualities of painting.
All three bodies of work are highly self-reflective, and they question the meaning and mechanisms of pictorial self-reflection. Many of my pictures simultaneously affirm and transgress their own defining features (edges, surfaces, spaces, views, and times); asserting these features, but often by exceeding them somehow. As such, the works exhibit tense or indeterminate boundaries, and thus their reflections upon themselves and the conventions of their mediums are necessarily and provocatively incomplete.
