In recent months I have executed a series of drawings and painted assemblages employing visceral and industrial usages of paint. An attempt to examine, understand, and exorcise a strict and at times disturbing Parochial school religious training. This education took place in the context of an urban ethnic working class environment, which is also of thematic interest to me. I have a personal fascination with the aesthetic appeal of cheap, shoddy, and unadorned fabricating methods and material associated with the poor. In my work I try to employ, to the greatest extent possible, recycled, found, and cheaply appropriated materials.
Paints are often second hand commercial-grade wall and house paints and enamels.
Paint and assemblage surfaces are usually comprised of discarded pieces of lumbar or found crate panels and shipping pallets. Objects that I attach to my assemblage surfaces are either cut from inexpensive or found material or are found objects or things cheaply purchased from a thrift store. When executing a piece, I will often start to disassemble what I am working on to find new and often unexpected juxtapositions of forms and color. This process often reveals unexpected surfaces of seepage patterns and encrusted paint. I am very conscious of my love and identification with paint.