My works have evolved from an investigation of the conventions of the historical still-life genre in relation to contemporary consumer culture in America. My use of meat, dolls, toys, and corporate icons serves as a commentary on a culture of vanity and excessive consumption while bridging notions of kitsch and high art. Images of food, Barbie dolls and fast food toys allude to the theme of Vanitas in seventeenth-century Dutch still-life paintings and, at the same time, to the current discourse on the politics of the body. I appropriate McDonald’s toys cast from popular cartoon characters and other food-related mascots, such as the Pillsbury Doughboy, to comment on how toys have been used to lure generations of consumers to the food industry. Behind each of these comical and absurd compositions is a layer of dark humor; they allude to the complex relationship between the human body, materialism, vanity, and excessive consumption.
My paintings are mostly oil on canvas or panel. I use multiple layers of thinly applied paint and various glazing techniques to accentuate their luminous and soft focused quality. Frequently working from my own photographic sources and, most recently, from digitally generated images, I manipulate the representation of objects in my paintings and works on paper.
