Autumnal

"Autumnal"

oil and enamel on paper-mounted panels, each 3" x 2.5"

3 hanging options, 2011

Homing Pigeons

"Pigeon"

oil and enamel on paper-mounted panel, 3" x 2.5" 2011

"Homing"

oil on paper mounted panels, triptych, each 8" x 7.5" (8" x 22.5" total)

2011

Homing detail

Contrails

"Contrail"

oil on paper-mounted panel, 6" x 5.5"

2011

Our Lady

"Our Lady" (night)

oil on paper-mounted panel, 15" x 17" 2011

"Our Lady" (day)

oil on paper-mounted panel, 15" x 17", 2011

A nod to Velazquez while exploring the idea of the halo or ring of stars. Letting the symbol stand alone, deity removed (in this case the Holy Mother) creates an interesting tension; the aura of spirituality without the figurative elements. As a lapsed catholic and a painter I think its useful to confront, or at least start a dialogue with roman catholic iconography, the backbone of western painting. It also reminded me of certain miracle visions, such as Our Lady of Fatama, which is a truly strange episode with apocalyptic secrets passed on to unsuspecting, yet devout children, culminating in a blinding mid-day apparition confirmed by an entire town.

Religious iconography, and the stories they serve to better tell, present us with a fascinating intersection between faith, natural phenomena and the ability of the mind to extrapolate meaning from both.

Double Exposure

"Lapse"

oil on paper mounted panel, 8" x 6.75", 2011

"lapse"- detail

A kind of abrupt return to figurative work, "Lapse" represents a kind of culmination of certain proclivities and directions that have shown up in my work in the past year. Playing with the distorted image, doubling and visual confusion that more directly talks about movement or time passing (in this case, time enough to glance down). In many ways this painting feels new, bold and challenging, but it also feels very much like where I left off with figurative concerns- it feels like a MICA painting; it also unabashedly references my favorite figurative painters, Vuillard, Sargent, Uglow, Saville...not that this diminishes the spark of the painting. If anything, it's like comfort food, or a new way of telling a familiar story. And hopefully the yellow, which has an associative significance for me, off-sets that ubiquitous Baltimore gray that I tried so hard to un-learn.

"Yellow shirt"

oil on paper-mounted panel, 8" x 6.75", 2011

Pigeon Camera

"Pigeon Camera"

oil on paper-mounted panel, with PVA and pencil. 8" x 7", 2011

Pigeon Camera- digital study

More Trees

"Most Everything Does #2"

oil on two paper-mounted panels, each 7" x 4.25"

Part two of trees and phone lines.

I like how the color gradation can be interpreted as both dawn and dusk, beginning or end.

Detail of panel preparation. Paper mounted panel, primed with gesso, and cut into a grid relief within both panels, that is then primed with PVA. The variation in surface height allows for interesting textures as well as the painting sitting "within" the rest of the surface. I don't think I would do this for every painting, but surface wise, it made sense for these compositions.