Oil, acrylic, gold leaf, thread on canvas, 45″ x 52″
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 2025
My “Hotel California” Series are portrayals of the constant conflict we have within ourselves of who we really are vs how we often render a synthetic version of ourselves to others and how technology is erasing the line between what is reality and what is altered. Lately, I find myself in a constant mental & emotional roller-coaster between a sense of deep nostalgia for the tangible vs that indulgence of materialism and an augmented reality which can be very addictive…”Prisoners of our own device”.
The narratives of these playful paintings display my internal contrasts and conflicts and the diminished line of reality and how it messes with my mind. Within the canvas, my paintings flip back and forth between being tactile and textured vs smooth-almost placid. They play with elements of realism (or not) while seamlessly marrying graphic superficial looking ones. They evoke a sense of nostalgia yet they are surreal. They portray a sense of richness yet there is grittiness.
In this somewhat humorous painting “Vanity” I render my conflict of my indulgemment in materialism and superficiality against my deep empathy for Mother Nature and global warming and the stark reality that in the end Mother Nature will always take over humanity, our materialism, our vanity. The Mirror is black; well that’s the slap in the face and perhaps a reminder of a reality check.
