"OBJECT LESSONS" New Work: 2009

My new work is a gleeful response to the optimism of the new era in American
life. It is about getting back to the work of building and constructing and
the pleasure of the process. It is a return to my interest in the theater
and the theatricality of the objects we surround ourselves with. These may
be objects we use everyday and hardly bother to notice, but they may have a
remarkable complexity. They may also have many subconscious associations for us. Eyeglasses may represent "sight" or "vision", a television remote,
"relaxation", a car key, "freedom" or "possibility", a spigot, "summertime",
"childhood" or "thirst".

By isolating these objects and according them a pedestal-like presence on
the canvas, I am inviting the viewer to take a closer look and reconsider
the quotidian. As in recent work, the large coastline and horizon paintings
from my Key West and Katrina series, I am using a variety of techniques and
sources, including photograph, collage and paint. What is new is the
addition of the found object. The source object sits there with the
painting, inviting the viewer to compare the impersonal and utilitarian with
the subjective and aesthetic. The use of the photograph introduces another
layer of objectivity. The camera eye can flatten an object so that one can
see side and front at the same time--something the human eye is unable to
do. The viewer might consider which is the most real: the object, the
photograph, or the painting? Some things we are accustomed to taking on
faith, others we rely on science to guarantee for us.