‘the gamble’
Playing cards are rich with historical, political, and religious symbolism. The images evolved over the centuries crossing and integrating cultural boundaries. They are a tool in support of the culture of gambling, a culture of money, a culture that deifies royalty. Playing cards are almost always viewed the same upside down and right side up as a sort of mirror image, yet flipped providing a sort of self reflection, but a bit skewed. Personal experience is the backdrop for opinions as well as bias. These paintings are exploring a relationship to risk, an addiction to wealth and a severe reckoning with what white Americans in this and the last century have held dear as our highest ideals.Through the process of painting instinctively and reflectively, each work is distilled into a single element that defines and deconstructs an American mythology.
"It never seemed like it was enough." 50 x 44"
"Protecting the Beast from our own Propensity for Bad Behavior." • 50 x 44"
Tulip Queen, The Gift • 50 x 44"
"ELEVEN" the gamble 50x44"
"Pieta" or "I am dead now" • 50 x 44"
"RACE HORSE"'the gamble' 26 x 22"
"SELF DRIVING" the gamble 26 x 23"
"THE SWAN" the gamble 26 x 22"
"THE GENERAL"the gamble 26 x 23"
"QUEEN OF DIAMONDS" the gamble 26 x 18"
"THE HARVEST"the gamble 23" x 18"
direct printing ‘the gamble’’
The images are painted on top of patterns printed directly from a cookie jar that was in my mother’s kitchen. Most of the patterns created by printing directly from the cookie jar are obscured by the painting process. Remnants of the background print are only visible around the outer edge of the canvas creating a framework. Each painting evolves in response to the printed surface inspired by the iconography and the graphic intention of a specific card.