Bedside Geo Lamp

Acrylic, ink, dye, spray paint collage, 20″ x 24″

As I look around in the world, my eyes often fix on specific objects, in formal terms for their striking form or shape. Sometimes these are baskets, window frames, bowls, and lamps. Or often the geometry of sections of architectural elements. I like introducing these shapes into my paintings. They feel malleable and also able to float in a decontextualized way on top of the painterly marks. To my eye, they lend a lighthearted and slightly wonky perspective to the overall work. This plucking of everyday objects from their original context and clunking them down in the middle of a paintings is about connecting the dots. The relationships between my non objective painterly surfaces and the everyday, familiar things I see in the world firsthand don’t seem clear or obvious. But part of the fun for me is forcing these two realms to coexist in one surface and figuring out a creative solution to make them work together. Hopefully, to a subtle, complex, bright and funny end. This piece is literally the shape of a pendant lamp I saw somewhere…it made it’s way through to the surface of this painting and it’s solid object-ness gives a focal point and is weighty. But you can also see through it to the back of the painting and imagine it’s suspended near someone’s white and fluffy bed.