"Botanica" Elements > Painted Photographs

In this series, I combine photographs I’ve taken with painted shapes. Each photograph acts as a ground for the figure of a singular painted image. Both the photographs and the painted images represent found objects: the photographs are street scenes, ceilings, window treatments, sculptural fragments, etc.; the paintings are gestural abstractions of botanical fragments, used balloons, pieces of leather, etc. The photographs present various scales from streetscape to close-ups, and these collide and interact with the singular painted shapes, derived from small objects painted at nearly one-to-one scale. The surface of each piece is a dialogue between the digitally captured photograph and the hand-painted shape, of two materially distinct representational processes. This is a play of found scenes and found objects, in most cases things that show their history and have often been ignored or discarded. I come upon these things in the world, and then re-call attention to them by concentrating on their shapes, surfaces, and framing, combining the resulting images in overt juxtaposition.

Untitled (museum wall with black wing shape)
Untitled (museum wall with black wing shape)
Watercolor on archival digital photograph
8 1/2 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm)
2009