Artwork 1977-1996 (Vol. 2)
Large Mill, 1995, acrylic, gouache, ink,
and pencil on paper, 90" X 88" (Stage One)
Stage Two
Final Version
never exhibited--done right before I moved to
NY and started working with the computer. the
piece got more difficult to look at as it was
completed--by the end it was impossible for
very long without retinal strain and
headaches--the early stages appear tasteful in
these polaroid scans but the colors are pretty
artificial and obnoxious in person--I
contemplated stopping the process and calling
it done at many stages but pressed on out of
some innate sense of responsibility to the
initial premise. the "disc" design was
originally based on paintings of rolled-up
silk seen end-on in a Russian
constructivist-influenced painting, I think by
Liubov Popova.
Psychic Highway, 1994, gouache on aluminum-coated paper, linen tape [along seams on back], 81" x 78" (destroyed 2002)
Getting the water-based gouache paints to stick on that metallic surface was the challenge of a lifetime. By 2002 so much had cracked off it the piece had to go to the landfill. The drips are all fake--to give the look of zestful spontaneity. A bit Scharfish but without his commitment to creating a fine, permanent object.
Spheres on Checks, 1994, gouache on 363 cancelled checks, linen tape, 90" x 66"
I had to yawn when I saw that Richard Prince's new paintings incorporated his cancelled checks. From the reproductions I saw, he didn't do anything interesting with them, like paint several hundred spheres on them. This reproduction is pretty grainy; I'll try to post something more detailed on another page.
Advil Box, 1994, acrylic on promotional display box, 16.5 x 8 x 8.5 inches
private collection
Magnolias, 1994-1996, ink, acrylic, and collage, 21.5 x 17 inches.
The image in this post from my main blog is a
"virtual" version of a series I did in the early
to mid-'90s, of acrylic and gouache molecules
painted on giant, taped together sheets of
doodled-on, throwaway paper. I did quite a few
of these pieces (detail of one above--full sized
one in progress below) before moving to New York
and getting minimalist religion.
I mean, I like the ability of avowedly
maximalist work to upset people. Collectors
prefer elegant black and white abstractions that
fade into the background, and the bad kid in me
wants to make something they'll totally hate.
And these are bad--there are a lot of degraded,
half-finished pin-up girl drawings you can't see
in the scanned polaroid, and bug-eyed
caricatures, just the worst stuff. I'm compelled
to do this kind of work (still) but once it's
finished and I step back and look at it, I
sometimes wish I hadn't.
Molecule on Legal Pad, 1996, mixed media,
approx. 40" X 35"
Tom Moody, Study for Selected Apparitions
(detail), 1983, scan of collage
Wolf and Molecule (Eat at the Y), 1992,
acrylic on canvas, 12" X 9"
Plumbing, 1994-2002, jpegs
Buckyball II, 1993-2002, jpeg
(original artwork destroyed)
Double Alpen, 1995, acrylic on cereal
boxes, 10" X 13" X 3"
private collection
Stripes and Cage, 1995, acrylic on
paper, 47" X 40"