Tantra: indulgence with awareness, vision without judgment––observant, not evaluative. I paint along this continuum. My works come from an engagement with the materiality of paint and the complexity of the expressive mark. They enter into a dialogue beyond their powers to represent. Using smears, scratches, scrapes, and copious amounts of paint, I compose visual interrogatories of cultural minutia: metallic flashes, fake eyelashes, yoga mats, coconut water, glossy magazines, platinum blonde hair, gold hoops, turquoise, worn leather, furs, and painted nails.

As with all art that I admire, mine emerges from a conversation of the present with the past––my images are drawn from a broad repertoire of historical references that have been distilled into a private iconography. My current practice could be compared to that of a stage designer building environments for plays that are written in reaction to the props being built.

My paintings address issues about the display and dissemination of art. Comprised of painting, screenprint, drawing, and collage, they rely heavily on process and reproduction. They involve photographic (through screenprint) and handcrafted (blind contour, peripheral gazing, or compromised vision) strategies to reproduce gestures and actions that take place in the studio. I opt for a horizontal mode of working, in which each piece generates the next, less complete than a “cover” or “riff” on another piece––an echo.

While working at research stations in Antarctica, I became interested in the aesthetics of telescopes. These massive seeing-machines are often the only structures that punctuate the otherwise seamless expanse of the continent: some of Earth’s most remote and least hospitable locales. Unspoiled natural settings like these provide ideal subjects for landscape paintings, and the addition of the uncommon manmade structures produces images that are both familiar and foreign. When painted, the machines appear luminous but solid, animated but perfectly still, fantastic while thoroughly earthbound.