Windows

A windowpane functions as a site of transition. A reflection in a window is two places at once: the inside world and the outside world, compressed together on one plane.

In the window paintings, both interior and exterior are self-constructed, self-defining worlds. Figures are in a liminal space: in both and neither. The window is both an opening and a barrier. The paintings depict disconnection, but also interconnection.

Figures

Because each person's reality is constructed from his or her specific experiences, no two people can have the same reality. We interact, but we are essentially disconnected. We inhabit the same space, but every person has a unique perception of it. My figurative paintings are narratives about individual psychological spaces, and the difficulty of defining fact.

I respect academic figure painting, and occasionally quote directly from art history. However, my dialogue with the history of painting also is an investigation into history as a construction, the invention of meaning, and the changing role of painting.

Security

The "Security" series investigates issues surrounding surveillance, documentation and voyeurism. These paintings document surveillance camera images lifted from the web. Hundreds of surveillance cameras are online. Most people on camera are unaware that they are being photographed. It is unlikely that any of my subjects remember the moment that I have painted, but by painting it, without their knowledge I have assigned significance to it.

The "Security" paintings emphasize a lack of shared narrative by focusing on non-stories. By painting surveillance camera images, I interpret situations from which I am actually completely disconnected. In the absence of enough information, the viewer constructs a plot where it doesn't exist. An image out of context still leads the viewer to make judgments.

Not figures

I am working with transparency and opacity, solidity and ethereality, and reflection.

Sketchbook pages

Although the use of photography has become increasingly important to my painting, more than a decade ago I stopped traveling with a camera, and travel only with a sketchbook. My sketchbooks are surrogate photo albums, journals, and an ongoing documentation project.