Homage presents paintings of objects for which my mother and father had preferences or aversions. This examination is rooted in the connectedness and tenuousness of parent-child relationships. This work is tender, as both of my parents died recently, only a few months apart. I dedicate this exhibition to them, Anne and John, who helped to cultivate and support my work as an artist for decades. 

Homage functions also as an act of appropriation from notable painters' work. After identifying objects associated with my parents, I searched for those images in works of painting I admire, plucking them from others’ compositions to redraw with black ink on paper. These drawings were then traced on clear overlay making a template for a patterned shape to be cut out of already painted canvas remnants. Finally, I cut out a thin wood panel to support each canvas shape forming a new body of painted wall sculpture. 

These objects challenge the physical edge of painting: indirect and circuitous contours override the straight boundaries of painting’s traditional rectilinear surfaces. The sourced canvas previously existed as a failed attempt at painting. Now it solves the burden of rejected work. Such failures are often an unspoken taboo or hidden byproduct of the artist’s process.  Here the remnants are consciously reclaimed as pentimentos, or visible traces of earlier painting. Acting as a metaphor for loss, impermanence, and legacy. 

With gratitude to the following painters: Susan Rothenberg, Luc Tuymans, Claude Monet, David Hockney, Jane Freilicher, Chris Ofili, Gershon Benjamin, Biala, Richard Diebenkorn, Herman Maril, Morandi, Wayne Thiebaud, and Nicolas DeStaël