Work on Paper > Ghosts in the Machine
Archival Pigment Prints with Letterpress.
Roughly 8”x11”. $350 each
In its earliest days, photography was associated with truth, documentation, and accuracy while painting was associated with fiction, creativity, and subjectivity. This perception lingered for decades, allowing spirit photographers to dupe people who, in their eagerness to pierce death’s veil, believed willingly that a camera couldn’t lie.
We are all haunted by something. Last century’s spirit photographs attest to the power of love and loss in peoples’ lives. My paintings channel some of our other specters as well: the causes and effects of social injustice; psychological complexities; relationships; the force and folly of our culture.
In this project, I exploit painting’s natural ability to document these other kinds of phantoms, drawing heavily on photography for inspiration as well as in the actual production of this work. These are gouache paintings, some of which have been photographed in patterns of shadow and light, using depth of field, etc.