Measuring the Measure of Mankind

My recent work has consisted of studies of abstractly domestic imagery, leading up to two concurrent projects in progress.  The first is a musing on humans’ aesthetic relationship with domesticated natural forms.  In this project I intend to portray domesticated plants in alternately preserved and unrestrained states, considering the plant’s “wildness” as a perceived provocation of the human desire to conquer and contain it.   My second project is an exploration of American masculinity, primarily as performed by men, as experienced by women, and as constructed by both.  In this series, I am juxtaposing images of archetypal male fantasy figures with cultural symbols and materials related to the pervasive existence of these figures in the American popular imagination.  The paintings do not deal exclusively with either heterosexual or homosexual fantasy; they are instead either bisexual, ambivalent, or of indeterminate sexual orientation.