Surfaces and Objects

The tiny ceramic paintings in this exhibit reference portrait miniatures from the 18^th and 19^th centuries that were sometimes used as jewelry and other decorative items, and Delft tiles from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The historical context of these ceramic paintings invites a perspective in which they are regarded as objects, while the imagery painted on them plays with the interaction of the viewer with an object and what appears on its surface. The insects on the miniatures are painted to scale and, though they are part of the surface imagery, seem to occupy the same physical space as the viewer, rather than that of the scene depicted. This exhibit also features mixed-media paintings on paper that reference and expand on themes present in the smaller pieces. These pieces explore the permeable qualities of the surface of an image.

The ceramic miniatures in this exhibit have been painted with underglaze on greenware using a tiny brush, and have been reglazed and fired up to three times before reaching their current state. I learned these techniques from my dad, the ceramicist Doug Burbeck, whose own delft tile miniatures were an inspiration for some of the paintings in this exhibit.

The Invention of the Body

In these drawings and paintings I look at human sexuality and control. I construct each still life out of fabric, pillows, and clothing, creating forms that are reminiscent of bodies. The cloth represents contorted, flesh, as well as what conceals it. These forms are naked and distorted, they seem sometimes embarrassingly revealing, but it is a false intimacy. The folds of drapery obscure false bodies that could be anything.

Flocking

Organic patterns that are created by movement or growth are frequently asymmetrical in a way that looks random. There are, however, predictable features that appear throughout multiple organic systems, and these features guide our recognition of the world around us. The grace with which animal groups bunch up and spread apart is reflected in the patterns of birthmarks and freckles on our own bodies. Using deliberate marks to create images that represent natural, unintentional patterns, I attempt in this series to investigate the place where nature and artifice meet. These images in watercolor and ink were shown at Du Mois Gallery in the summer of 2014.

Reflector

This series of oil paintings uses yearbook photographs from 1964, ‘65, and ‘69 respectively as source material. These portraits are painted on canvas and include inserted elements which are painted in flat, single colors. The opposition of multiple styles in these images underscores the conflict between my experience of the source material and the reality experienced by those in the pictures. In making colorful paintings, full of added imagery, based on the original black and white photographs, my creations further obscure the original subject from the final viewer.

The elements that I have included in these paintings, in addition to the portraits, include background imagery and cartoon animals. Parts of these environments cut across or cover the figure, forcing the figure into and out of the scenery, or making it appear as though one is peering through a reflected scene at the figure. In this way I alienate the human subject from the viewer and take control of the story they tell. In the paintings that include cartoon animals, these flat, cut-out creatures interact benignly or menacingly with the portrait subject, and reshape the meaning of the portraits. Some of these images were displayed in the UNO Fine Arts Gallery as part of the senior exhibition in the spring of 2015.

Posters

HairBall

Much of the content of the work I make is concerned with the biological experience of being a human. The features that define us as mammals, and which are beautiful, functional, and familiar, can become disturbing when viewed from unfamiliar angles. The multiplicity and fineness of strands of hair, the porousness of skin, and the bony hardness of the teeth that protrude from our gums are qualities we interact with all the time, everyday, but that are so familiar to us that our perception of them is not always conscious. Hair is a subject I particularly like addressing in line drawings like these ones, many of which were part of a May 2014 show at Ten Gallery. A review of this exhibit in Pelican Bomb can be found here.

Illustrations for Stories that Haven’t Been Written

I made this series of illustrative drawings because I wanted to invert the traditional narrative/image relationship. Illustrations typically arise out of narrative, rather than the other way around, and I liked the idea of writers being able to use a series of loosely connected drawings as a jumping off point for their own creative process. I invited writers to create stories and poems based on the drawings, and these can be found here. This project was exhibited at Ten Gallery in March 2014.