The studio is full of props. I collect skulls, taxidermy, ribbons, fabric, vintage photographs and paper ephemera. I organize these objects and stage compositions. I create abstract pictures and portraits, large and small, to add to the still life objects staged in space. My recent work features both acrylic prop-paintings and miniature gouache paintings informed by the arrangements of these props. Over the past year I have dedicated myself to a series of arrangements of paintings in space. I lean pictures on top of one another, hide one patterned canvas beneath another laden with similarly heavy pattern, or stack pictures on top of painted rugs. I have made hide rugs and begun to make wall treatments, all hand painted. In addition to rugs and patterned works I include portraits, floral flights of fancy, images reminiscent of sweaters, color wheels, or Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs. There is a kind of demented devotion to hand painting every last detail. Accompanying these works are miniature gouache paintings that depict similarly dense installations. These are pictures of pictures, drawn from these props. I tend to consider these both depictions of past set ups and future proposals for props not yet made.

Published: October 20, 2014