THE JERSEY SERIES

My current body of work is an ongoing series of paintings that was started in May 2009. The investigation in this series centers on the recurring figure, decapitated, clothed in a jersey, being absorbed- in varying degrees- into the materiality and process of paint.

The figure was originally drawn from imagination, but as the series progressed became based on observation. As the series progressed further, the figures have become rendered in paint on transferred images. In this series, the Jersey signifies identity, but at a certain point the Jersey disappears.

The paintings have since become slates that treat images appropriated from news media as though they are the mystical concentration of an incredibly complex system of happenings that actually reveal numerous connections. Namely Getty images, and the Associated Press.

I am investigating identity with an intense awareness of the difference between an individual’s own, subjective, nature, and the coded personas we assume in response to the act of relating. Power is exchanged in, and amongst people. This type of power stands in opposition to that which comes from within, the drama between the two being deep, and powerful.

These paintings embody, investigate, challenge, and sometimes omit that power.