For the past ten months I have been exploring the plastic properties of paint in conjunction with the manipulation of plastic film. Both the paint and the film can be molded, shaped and encouraged to assume a desired or directed form. The use of acrylics, gesso and plastic film allow me to sculpt on the canvas. It is three-dimensional form erupting and modeling on the two-dimensional surface…the quintessence of what is plastic in art. At what point does the pliable paint, gesso or film become bas-relief?
Building this relief and topography has become a primary focus.

Plastic in its many forms and transformations has become endemic to our contemporary cultural life and vocabulary. Plastic protects, preserves and wraps. It both conceals and reveals. It can be injured, gathered, draped, torn. It can be made suddenly opaque or translucent, soft and yet brittle. I apply plastic to the surface of the canvas and at times remove it…leaving the impression or suggestion of the plastic "that was".

I have long been fascinated by the rendering of drapery - drawn, painted, sculpted, photographed. There is a special animation in the rendering and examination of drapery.
It becomes a topography…a visual metaphor. And again…what is hidden and what is revealed?

My other preoccupation at this time is working with multiple canvases…juxtapositions and confrontations that augment each other in their combination. Paintings in combination can also direct the eye across a space or around a corner. In this way they relate not just to each other, but to their environment. They do not fill a space but rather they articulate it as they respond to each other.

April 2003