My latest project, entitled, A Fictional Autobiography is comprised of sixty or so paintings begun in mid-2001 through present, representing a body of work conceived of as one large installation.

Collectively the paintings form nonlinear narratives using images of women from the historical past and contemporary present to speak about real relationships and intimate moments. I often use familiar images and position the subjects as contemporary protagonists altering their culturally constructed roles.

Each piece within this framework strategically deploys images for their symbolic or metonymic representation, which are often humorous, historical, populist and textually referenced. The complexities of the multi-layered images are closely related to the way I see visual representations – as compilations of imagery, not unlike associative imagery produced by the unconscious mind in dream-states.

This work can be explored on this website in two ways: one through a timeline in which the pieces are presented in the order they were created. This timeline also shows the various formats of the pieces and offers a chronological exploration of the work. The viewer is positioned as an active narrator reflecting his or her own subjectivities in relation to these works.

A walkthrough of these works is also available here as a way to view the pieces within arrangements that would be a one encountered in an exhibition of the work. These arrangements are one possibility of the works, one that remains open to interpretation and the specifics of the final physical space they would be presented within.

>A FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY (TIMELINE)

>A FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY (WALKTHROUGH)

 



2001 - 1994   Seeing Subjects

1994 - 1991   Self / Portraits

1990 - 1987   Ovals (as) Portraits

1987 - 1985   Nature (as) Imagined

1984 - 1982   Transitional Geometric

1981 - 1980   Geometric

1979 - 1975   Monochromatic

My earlier works are based on systems closely associated with Structuralism reflecting my interests in Phenomenology and Existentialism. The paintings are meticulously planned and executed in layers of paint that are evidenced at the edges of the painting as peaks of color (underpainting) emerging through the flatness and density of the surfaces. The individual layers and colors can be read in the edges: these layers of paint are fragile, eccentric and human, if you will, when seen in juxtaposition with the emphatic flatness and rigidity of the surface. Metaphorically, I suppose, one might say they reflect the purity of ideas and the existence of interiority within the corporeality of the material body. [1974-1978] Monochromatic

The top layer of monochromatic skin developed to reveal more of the geometric structure beneath. The ensuing work is more colorful work and less dependent on the systematic process that at times posed the dilemma of having to choose between sticking strictly to the system or electing to base my decisions on how I wanted the painting to look. The painting process had changed. These conceptual works are also painterly ones. [1979-1982] Geometric, Transitional Geometric

Eventually the marks used to apply paint turned into shapes that were no longer functional handiwork, but evolved into the subject of the paintings. The relationship of the marks within the systematic framework transformed into a more intuitive and subjectively arrived at construction. [1983-1987] Nature (as) Imagined

The emergence of ovals in my paintings became metonymic signifiers for portraits. The transition from abstraction to self-portrait and body-reference works developed rather quickly. Geometric forms became the architecture rather than subject in these works. [1984-1994] Ovals (as) Portraits, Self / Portraits

The paintings continue to be solid, ideologically and materially, reflecting my interventions in visual and theoretical discourses. No matter what the visual manifestation, I never leave the core balance of thought and visual materialism.