Panes 2024-2026
These works are called “Panes”. They are paintings made of epoxy built up into sheets embedded with glitter, textiles, pigment and photo transparencies. They are mounted on posts that suspend them one inch from the wall which allows light to hit the surface, pass into, and through them. Also included in this gallery are works on paper which are related to or independent of the Pane paintings in epoxy.
H signs 2021-24
I am chilled by the language and rhetoric in the political and social environment.
There is rhetoric that indulges, validates, and manipulates peoples’ fears, resentments and hatreds. It is speech which facilely puts blame on entire groups of people, exposing a cruel eagerness and indifference towards harming others. It is a distillate of hate being utilized as a tool to get votes and gather power (and money) at the expense of justice, truth and compassion. It tears people, society, and the world apart.
It is the covert, but clumsy obviousness in the insinuations, the use of hate and rancor as a tool, the innuendo and mendacity, that disturbs in a soul crushing way.
Instead of being obscured and implied I want to make that message exposed and visible, visual and tactile, able to be seen and examined. In the grammatical context I want to display the verb and noun without its object, and within this visual form.
These artworks are not intended as neutral exploration, nor overt commentary. They are a response to the disquiet I feel, embedded into the visual object. I call them “H signs”.
The idiomatic language of Commercial signage has informed and inspired my approach to making these works. In its form and function, the commercial sign is a model of efficient communication embedded within a vehicle offering opportunities for invention, poetry and visual expression, telling a story.
Beholding the grand or modest sign, I am roused by the stacked elements defining and twisting in the space around them, flashing “VACANCY/NO VACANCY”, and stirred by the pretty martini glass in neon, in all its retinal delight, like a Faberge Egg, steering one towards the oasis of alcohol.
Rackets 2012-21
“Rackets” are a group of wall mounted sculptures made between 2012 and 2021.
When making these I was modelling and guided by the format, functionality and visual presence of American commercial signage as an effective contrivance for communication.
Like a motel sign or bowling alley sign they have a frontality and a three-dimensional presence. They can be read from a distance. Up close the disparate parts carve out and define the space around them, and interact with the wall.
These works refer to themselves, and outwards to the world. The results are a visual and symbolic narrative in between the literal and poetic.
Each work began with a seed of an idea or feeling: about a photograph, a piece of wood, or something less concrete. The elements took on new identities as the work progressed and components were altered, adjusted, readjusted, and knitted together into a whole.
The materials used included, wood, photographs, epoxy, paint, aluminum, fabric, beadwork and paper, etc.