Statement, 2011

My painting explores the possibilities of physically representing emotional experience.  In doing so I disregard the flat plain and engage in a number of aggressive actions against the basic fiber of painting.  I cut and rip apart canvases.  I attack the surface with paint, with scissors, and with thread.

Repetitive actions play an important role in my process.  10,000 staples hold torn paper.  7,000 pieces of canvas cut to the same shape form a surface.  Millions of machine stitches hold the canvas together.   These actions are part of the labor critical to my art making.  Like a mantra or a rote prayer this activity builds the intensity of the experience for both the creator and viewer.

My works are most successful where the interaction between form and image is powerful, where these two elements appear to battle for primacy. This happens where painted surfaces are cut apart.  The original image is disturbed and often unreadable because of these interruptions of the physical structure.  At the same time the paint alters the face of constructed textures. The obviously time consuming detail of the sewn structure is undermined and even eradicated in places by quickly applied spills of paint. 

The most recent works include a repeated painted element.  These flowers are drawn from a Bavarian folk art tradition.  They are meant to decorate and improve household items.  I’ve used them here to cover and distract.  They meander through spaces and assert themselves even where they are obscured and ripped apart.  I think of them as insistently happy, determined to fulfill their objective regardless of the chaos around them.