Weeping Woman I, Oil and Watercolor on Paper, 16 x 20”
Weeping Woman II, Oil on Paper, 18 x 24”
Weeping Woman III, Oil and Encaustic on Canvas, 22 x 32”
Weeping Woman IV, Oil on Stretched Paper, 19 x 27”
Weeping Woman V, Oil and Encaustic on Canvas, 25 x 31”
Weeping Woman VI, Oil on Canvas, 21 x 28 "
Weeping Woman VII, Oil on Canvas, 23 x 40"
Weeping Woman IX, Oil and Encaustic on Canvas, 28" x 34"
Influenced by trends in contemporary realism, my work foregrounds questions of legibility and illusion in representation (re-presentation). I am particularly interested in using ideas from trompe l’oeil and analytical cubism to tease out the queer potential of figurative painting. My most recent project, entitled “Weeping Women”, explores themes of grief and abjection through a series of imaginatively executed still lives of handmade paper models. The paintings are unified by a set of common idioms. Holes (or orifices) suggest both eyes and windows, and serve to implicate the viewer. By invoking the ambiguous relationship between interior and exterior, “Weeping Women” challenges the notion of a clear distinction between beholding and absorptive states, and compels the viewer to identify with the nominally passive ground. The shifting terrain of legibility within each painting confounds the gaze and reveals the fundamental paradox of spectatorship.