“One small complaint may hide a great one.”

-from "One Train May Hide Another", Kenneth Koch

 

The paintings, small, jesting complaints, begin in unease, in the miscalibration between the fires, literal and figural, that we’ve unleashed, and the meagerness of our response to them.  The absurdity of the modern world, and an absurdist humor, leavens an underlying despair.  

 

The work references a multiplicity of signals, amplified, demanding, overwhelming.  So many signs that the signifiers pass by mis-read, unread, unreadable. Patterns double, replicate, obscure.  Ocelli mimic eyes, misdirect attention.  The copy mocks the original.  The real is eclipsed by the imaginary, as horse to unicorn.  Animals, alienated and misplaced, stand in as witnesses, another feint. 

 

Prometheus unchained, we all steal fire now.  Paradise burns, we check our phones.