The paintings in the Witness series are my way through the onslaught of visual images I am confronted with on a daily basis. I choose images that signify a particular historical moment or geographical location. I hold these events and scenes within the slow method of painting in order to consider them fully and give them some measure of importance. I paint these images to emphasize the importance of reflecting critically upon the past, of owning and being responsible for our shared histories. Through painting, I can fend off the hopelessness and futility I feel when faced with mainstream North American culture’s ever-present striving toward innovation, technology, and constant change. Painting is the way I slow things down in order to be able to study and understand them. It is also how my critical, analytical voice takes shape.
These paintings stand against the force of the media and its seemingly total control over context and presentation of information by presenting shifting points of view and new configurations that are shaped from the old. They are not narrative but suggestive. I pair unrelated images– a squirrel and a nuclear test blast, a deer and soldiers from the Vietnam War, Siamese Twins and cloned sheep–in order to seek out points of connection and contradiction. I look at the ways representations create emotional and critical responses. I play around with copying something that is already an image, creating from observation, then from remembrance. I want to see how I might best use these varying methods of perception and representation to evoke the memories and sympathies of my audience.
witness
Fire III from the series, Witness, 2005, oil on canvas, 5’ x 6’
Fire III (detail)
Fire III (detail)
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2005, oil on panel, 4’ x 3’
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 18” x 24” each
Detail
Detail
Detail
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 18” x 24”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 16” x 16”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2004, oil on panel, 18” x 24”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 18” x 24”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 18” x 24”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2005, oil on panel, 18” x 24”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2005, oil on panel, 18” x 27”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 12”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 8” x 12”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 12”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2005, oil on panel, 3” x 5” each
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 12”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 12”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 18”
Untitled, from the series, Witness, 2003, oil on panel, 6” x 18”
