It
has been said that a Baroque sensibility underscores my recent
work, particularly in the large multi-figure narrative drawings;
images, which suggest heightened sexual and psychological tensions.
For a number of years now my work has almost exclusively privileged
drawing, eschewing color and paint for the essential tools of
charcoal and paper. This option for the basics was deliberate,
a wish to regress to fundamentals and origins in both materials
as well as content
The accompanying images provide examples of parallel series
of works. The catalyst for one series was the diaries of the
late theatre critic and writer Kenneth Tynan (T Defeated by
Nymph, An Eschatology of Desire, T and Virgil in Purgatory).
This body of work marked a departure from the manner of neo-academic
work that had previously been my focus. Here, drawing became
an exploration of content, focusing on an invented anti-heroic
male figure, both comic and tragic, entrapped by desire.
More complex narratives make up a second body of work, larger
drawings which engage compositional traditions, invoking the
melancholy of Watteau, the dynamic physicality of Rubens and
the structural rigor of Poussin. These suggest cosmologies:
groups of figures confront the natural realm (At Sea, Night
Sky) as well as realms of thought and mythic experience –
desire, longing, and death. (Augustine’s Dream, Satyr
and Nymph, Acteon).
Another series is based on the conceit of the “Loves of
the Gods”: drawings and paintings of amorous couples in
the ephemeral Eden of sex that confront the Freudian notion
of the primal scene. They are explicit fantasies of origins,
implicit with the double wish for extinction and rebirth.
In formal terms, the drawings attempt to integrate both comic
and tragic modes – but not too comic or not too tragic.
The underlying tone is perhaps one of bewilderment at the uncanny,
astonishing awkwardness of the body as a site and medium of
expression, experience and connection.
MFA completed at Brooklyn College, NY. Has
exhibited nationally, most recently at The ’Temporary
Museum of Painting in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. Teaches in
the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University. Previous teaching
includes Pratt Institute, The New York Academy of Art, The Delaware
College of Art and Design, The Minneapolis College of Art and
Design and SUNY, Stonybrook. Lives in Brooklyn, NY.