As it Is
An outgrowth of previous examinations of disintegrating architectural models, the focus of this current series continues to be on awkward interruptions of what might typically be considered the "right" picture. Each painting represents a single brief moment in which routine artifacts of one’s daily life are illuminated and transformed, activated by the momentary attention. Banal, domestic flaws—features that are typically avoided in the course of self-representation—are here given center stage. These stained, chipped, misaligned, and untidy items are intensely personal, but the paintings aren’t of a confessional nature. Instead, the tableaus explore the delight of discovery as ordinary, imperfect materials are momentarily engaged in awkwardly arresting formal relationships. My interest in the unstable line between abstraction and representation remains a prominent thematic thread in this work.
Each of these images are clearly informed by photography’s ability to “fix” a moment in time and by the logic of selection that accompanies the era of digital manipulation. Nevertheless, these works embrace the language of painting more completely than previous series did. Photography is no longer deployed as a distancing or filtering mechanism, the emphasis on photographic depth of field is eliminated, and the paintings’ surfaces are of a tactile nature. Both the artist’s hand and the viscosity of paint have become more active participants in the work. Further, while the use of photography and cropping remain central to this process, the character of my photographic sources has changed. No longer "trophies" or souvenirs of the spectacle of power—and tourism—the images and moments are definitively mine, embracing the incidental and insignificant facets of my personal environment.