2005

Artist statement related to many of the works made in 2005-2009:

My choices of material and the way in which I engage form and context are informed by my earlier painting practice. Many of the items (used watercolor sets, used paint rollers, etc.) are modular discards of processes far removed from the “high art” context I bring them into, and have trace, painterly qualities that are indirectly or unintentionally created. What originally brought me to use these materials was an interest in “painting without painting.”

But I also recognize the familiarity and history of these objects, and how, when situated within opposing contexts, they offer ways to explore metaphor. A major aspect of many pieces is presenting crudity with elegance. I find it poignant (and amusing) that the watercolor set I now place in a Minimalist setting was used by a second grader to make a small painting of a cow (which can now be found on that child’s family refrigerator). I carry this associative narrative further in works where I may repetitively clean, for display, the edges of watercolor ovals in much the same way a parent would clean the mouth of their child. The forms of the arrangements are distillations arrived at through working in-situ with the material and the particular space (wall, floor, pedestal, ceiling, etc.). The multiples I collect remain unfettered and are constantly recycled into new works in various different contexts.