A R T I S T   S T A T E M E N T S

I make realist oil paintings that occasionally veer into the realm of objects, and glass and mixed media sculptures. Two current bodies of work, Biometric Portraits and Currency, address notions of chance, choice, and personal worth in the context of fine art, big data and my good life. /eom
For reasons unknown to me, my work is frequently referenced in English and Australian high school curricula. Over the past decade I have been contacted by teachers and students wishing to interview me about my process and path to becoming an artist. Below is one such interview from an a-level art student in London. I think this may be more interesting than any other bunch of words that I could put together as context for my work. Her questions (in bold) focused on my Cherry Biter paintings.( Scroll down to read more about my other bodies of work).

What inspired you to make the series 'biting’?
The color red was my jumping off point. Initially, as arbitrary as it may sound, I simply wanted to make red paintings. I started brain-storming, trying to think of subjects that are intrinsically red. Answers abounded but mouths first, and then cherries, really resonated for me in light of my ongoing fascination with physical experience, especially in a historical era characterized by the decline of touch due to our increasingly digital culture.

Why this sense?, why close ups + warm colour palette?
Regarding color, see above. As for this sense, these paintings are about multiple senses: the taste of the cherry, the immensely gratifying feeling of crunching a firm, ripe cherry in your teeth, the satisfaction of hunger-all of it. At the end of the day these works depict hedonism: uncomplicated sensual pleasure and nothing else. The tight crop in this and all of my work enables me to be very specific.

Benefits behind the series biting?
It was a huge departure from the work I’d done before it so creatively it was a massive breakthrough. I really honed my tolerance for painting fine detail articulating the lips and tongue, something I had trouble cultivating the patience for prior to this series. And, this work has been included in two museum exhibitions and has sold well.

What materials used and why?
I work with oil on canvas almost exclusvely. It’s luscious color and consistency are ideal for expressing these visceral, sensual subjects. Oil painting wet-on-wet is a tight-rope act for sure, but the gorgeous “accidents” that show up in the juxtaposition of painterly marks and colors sliding apart and meeting provide brilliant flashes of pure joy that more than make up for the arduous task of wrangling this unruly substance into recognizable imagery.

What artist inspired you to create this series?
The Cherry Biter idea just popped into my head. As ridiculous as it may seem, I was not situating this work within the context of art history, contemporary or otherwise. That said, I have forever been influenced by a professor whose enthusiasm for the Abstract Expressionists bordered on obsession. The way he talked about paint and gesture, the visceral nature of creating in this wild and life-affirming manner, embracing chance... that has underpinned my approach to painting since day one. But in general, I am motivated more by ideas and, in this work especially, sensations. Additionally, although I had not yet seen and therefore cannot claim to have been inspired by it, the work of Marilyn Minter shares a lot visually and conceptually with these paintings. Other than Minter, Warhol comes to mind, maybe James Rosenquist too. I have been very inspired by photography, advertising and cinema too: The eery, vivid imagery in David Lynch movies, Diane Arbus and William Eggelston photographs, gigantic Calvin Klein underwear ads on the sides of buildings…these things speak to me - loudly.

How did you become an Artist? What is your story?
I've always loved making art. When I was a little kid it was determined before I can even remember that I had some kind of talent for it. I coasted on that through elementary school and high school, but when I went to college I was rudely awakened by a "bad" grade from a drawing teacher. He gave me a “C” (THE definition of mediocrity over here in America). I was aghast! Haha! Suddenly I was expected to really work at this thing that had come so easily to me. But ultimately that grade was a gift. And a sort of compliment too. Even though the work I did in that class looked pretty good, the teacher knew that I was capable of more and they let me know this by poking me where it hurts: in the ego! I got an “A” (the highest mark) in the second semester which felt good, but the lesson to push the boundaries of my abilities and to take risks was the more valuable prize.

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WRITINGS ON INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS:

Biometric Portraits are oil on canvas paintings of greatly enlarged human irises and fingertips presented in extreme close-up and framed in fussy gold leaf. Some are capped with bulbous acrylic domes. Musings on power, identity, preciousness and psychedelic sexiness run through this work, alongside my ongoing preoccupation with the vitality and vulnerability inherent in existing in a finite physical body. Ultimately these paintings are an extreme form of portraiture - one that combines the tropes and techniques of the centuries-long tradition with the tools and ideologies of the digital age. 

In each portrait, all but one of which is of a woman in my life, the subject fills the frame of a shaped canvas thereby isolating it from recognizable biographical context. This compositional choice produces a portrait that is at once hyper-personal and totally anonymous. Framed in this way and seen from such close range, the rings and ridges of an iris or finger tip appear to me like features of a vast, otherworldly landscape. Yet what I’m seeing and ultimately rendering in sumptuous painterly color (with the details slightly altered), is a concentration of biometric data: biological idiosyncrasies that can be used - or misused - to access bank accounts, cloud storage and numerous other caches of valuable personal information. The elaborate gilt framing refers to one of many signifiers of status and implied importance of both the subjects (clergy, gentry) and the artifacts (oil paintings), that have punctuated the genre for centuries. I employ this device as a tongue in cheek gesture intended to elevate my work and my subjects, and to reference similarly enshrined institutional works and displays of wealth and status that have appeared in portraiture throughout history. Additionally, I'm alluding to a parallel that I see between the value placed upon personal data and fine art as commodities, as well as the value bestowed upon or withheld from certain groups or individuals in contemporary culture. This last point being the impetus behind my choice to exclusively represent women. 

Some art historical references and inspirations include The Arnolfini Double Portrait by Jan van Eyck, portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger, Georgia O'keefe's sensual naturalism, and Kehinde Wiley's ornate renderings of ordinary Black Americans whom he invited to embody the heroes of art, and by extension white European history, and the otherworldly color and content in David Lynch's films as well as photographic portraits by Diane Arbus and William Eggleston.

At the start of this project, all of the works were self-portraits, a fact that was both practical and conceptually meaningful during the lockdown and early stages of the COVID 19 pandemic. I was isolated from friends and family in my studio and the world at large was something that I watched rather than experienced first hand. As the threat and restrictions eased, I began to invite others to participate. 
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This work is aesthetically and conceptually related to a series of all-over paintings of the surfaces of my own hands that I did in the early 2010's. That project was inspired in part by my growing awareness of what at that time was a relatively new phenomenon: the decline of physical touch in an increasingly digital culture. Obviously the pandemic exacerbated that trend bringing that work a renewed relevance for me that continues in 2024.
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Currency are paintings of money, objects of obvious value, shown in a crumpled discarded state, their condition and positioning suggesting something closer to garbage. But these painted bills, like the Biometric Portraits, are enshrined in gold leaf, transforming them into rescued treasures of exaggerated worth.

This project began as a tangent in my ongoing investigation of the assignation of value and cultural gravitas that is cross-pollenating between contemporary art, big data, and fintech. I began making them after reading an absurdly long puff piece about the art dealer Larry Gagosian in the New Yorker, the title of which was ”Money on the Wall”. I laughed, I cried, I was inspired to go uber-literal and make paintings of money to hang on the wall – ha!

The newest pieces in the series include notions of luck and magical thinking as well, referencing a recurring dream I had as child in which I reach my hand into muddy water filling a crack in the sidewalk and pull out a handful of coins. I do this over and over again and never come up empty-handed. It is infinite. When I was much older I started winning things such as medium-sized lottery prizes and raffles, and finding “real money” (which I define as more than a dollar) on the street, $20 bill on the floor of a bar, $100 at a subway turnstile, and more. These experiences transformed the way I saw myself. It seems that I am lucky!
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PAINTINGS OF THE COUNTRY "America is not a place, it is a road." - Mark Twain

Evening in America, Night Tripper and Big Country are three related bodies of work through which I explore the mythologies and realities of the American landscape as seen from the perspective of a traveler, often at night. The settings hover between the built world and the natural landscape, and although no people are pictured, each composition preserves some residue of the human presence: a power line, a building, or simply the road itself. My intention is to take the viewer into the scene, showing just as much (or as little) sharp detail as the human eye and mind can process in person. The point of view and painting style reflect the fleeting nature of impressions, especially those formed while driving on deserted roads in low light.

Night Tripper is a series of small oil paintings of seasonally abandoned beach roads depicted at the liminal moment between dusk and nightfall. The title references the spooky alter ego of Doctor John and all that it implies about the ambiguity of twilight: it's equal potential for magic and danger. These paintings feature two spots on Cape Cod*: Route 6 at the Provincetown/Truro line, and a secluded route that leads to Head of the Meadow, a wildly beautiful beach in the National Seashore which featured prominently in an earlier body of my work entitled Platinum Sea, paintings of the surface of the ocean (2013-16). This work picks up where that left off, substituting the surface of the road for that of the sea, and following a circuitous journey through the strange, tattered and often charming back roads and scenic byways of America, an entire country that has itself been famously characterized as more of a journey than a destination.* *In 2023 a deserted 2 a.m. Palisades Parkway makes an appearance.

Evening In America, the title of my 2020 solo show at Lyons Wier Gallery in NYC, was intended to be both a literal description of the paintings in the exhibition which are all set in late afternoon or early evening, as well as a comment on the current state of the nation both at home and on the world stage. Conceived before the pandemic, but no less relevant now (perhaps more), the words reference Ronald Regan's re-election campaign ad that featured imagery of Americans starting their day in a bright sunny world behind the jingoistic slogan, "It's morning again in America".

Big Country is a series of oil paintings based on imagery gathered while navigating the US & Canada by motorcycle. These works explore the notions of "home" and "away", and how my sense of these things is impacted by my personal history, American mythology, and the rise of digital culture. But their primary subject is the visual experience of motorcycling, which is simultaneously fragmented and completely immersive. The world appears to me alternately in tiny half-blurred snatches glimpsed in in my rearview mirrors, and the unmatched 180 degree perspective afforded by a view unbstructed by the structure of an enclosed vehicle. The series' title references the artist Edward Avedisian's description of America, which appeared in his obituary in Hyperallergic in 2013. The full quote, "It's a big country, and the only thing keeping it together is television", struck me as hilarious and oddly consistent with my own impressions of these loosely United States (though one might be tempted to substitute "tik tok" for "television" at this point).

These are scenes from a road trip. The road trip is a present-day expression of the distinctly American values of rebellion, freedom and restlessness embedded in the national psyche by the country's founders, and later realized in the conveyance of the internal combustion engine. Recent technological advances have ushered in a new era that threatens this tradition. One of the unintended consequence of ubiquitous personal computing is a historic decline in the number of teenagers pursuing that most quintessentially American rite of passage: the acquisition of a driver's license. The rise of digital culture has rendered the physical distribution of people and goods less urgent at the very least, if not completely unnecessary. People are no longer isolated socially or professionally by geography because many jobs can be done remotely; texts and chat take the place of face-to-face personal contact. Conversely, the distinction between home and work becomes increasingly vague when one is constantly accessible. And when there is no centralized workplace, personal space and time is less clearly defined. In such a time, it is both refreshing and strange to drive around the small towns and natural wonders that dot back roads and byways, visiting places that have yet to be subsumed by big box stores and national chain restaurants. The reward is a front row seat on a very different America, one rife with odd and often charming, if somewhat shabby, idiosyncrasies.
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Better Living Thru Chemistry (BLTC) is a limited edition sculpture series consisting of candy-colored glass and mixed media capsule-shaped objects festooned with text messages, social media iconography and the language of pop psychology. Inspired in equal parts by the ubiquitous presence of social media in contemporary culture and the simultaneous rise of direct - to - consumer pharmaceutical marketing, the work pokes fun at the alternately amusing and depressing correlations between the two phenomena as both are enlisted to over - simplify the human condition and expedite contentment with a familiar recipe of instant gratification and seductive packaging.
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PLATINUM SEA is a series of paintings of fragments of the North Atlantic ocean centered on the elemental, physical aspects of this living surface. The ocean is described in a muted color palette made up exclusively of cadmium red, titanium white and indigo extra. Since color is not an innate quality to water, I try to keep it fairly neutral, bringing about subtle changes in "temperature" and tone through minute adjustments to the proportions of these 3 components. I adopt a perspective that is extreme, often bringing the composition to the brink of abstraction. Situational cues such as a horizon line or light source are intentionally cropped out. What remains is an unbounded section of sensual topography, the actual scale and orientation of which is unknowable and unimportant. This, combined with the essentially fractal nature of this subject matter, fosters an ambiguity that keeps the focus on the materiality of both the subject and the painting.

Throughout, I use my own digital photographs as source imagery. The technology enables me to capture a level of detail or moment in time that is not accessible through casual observation, and through careful editing I am able to identify and isolate events or phrases within the larger context that strike me as both intimate and universal, timeless and ephemeral. The end result is quite realistic, but I am careful to maintain a balance between a rich, lively paint surface and visual accuracy. I see my process as the perfect marriage between the potential for alienation to which I allude here in the first paragraph, and the total sensory submersion required to complete and appreciate this work.
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The (2003-2014, 2024) BOVINE PORTRAITS IN HEXADECIMAL HUE is a series of monochromatic oil paintings of cows. Through this humorous and loving take on the genre of portraiture, I explore themes of repetition, existentialism, vanity and the impact of digital culture on visual experience. Artistic inspiration includes, but is not limited to the work of Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, and the spectacularly rendered visions of clergy and wealthy patrons by old masters such as Holbein and Vermeer.

Each painting begins with a headshot - a hastily captured image of the subject in their natural habitat encountered on motorcycle trips throughout the Catskill Mountains and lower Hudson Valley. That source image is then digitally edited and tinted with a single hue chosen from the 216 colors of the basic Web palette. The title of each painting includes the hex code for that color.

Initially inspired by a visit to a dairy farm in Buck's County, PA where I was mainly impressed by the size of these creatures, I quickly became captivated the facial "expressions" implied by anatomical idiosyncrasies such as long, luxurious eyelashes and heavy brooding brows that seemed to suggest a wide range of human emotions like fear, tenderness and vulnerability, even anger. Clearly this is projection on my part, one that is often shared by the viewer. But it made me think about how these creatures relate to the genre of portraiture. Historically, portraiture has been largely a tale of the very rich immortalized in self-important displays of wealth and power. In creating these works, I have elevated cattle, a traditional symbol of that wealth, to this same stature. Since embarking upon the project in early 2003, I have completed over 50 Bovine Portraits.