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.