Marbled Drawings
#91 American Bison Growing Poppies, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
The Marbled Drawings are pure process. I start by marbling my own paper in the Turkish stone style, using acrylic medium. The colors and shapes produced are random and they dictate to me the images I will draw on them. I work directly in ink, without planning, so any mistakes must be worked into the composition. The rules are that I must draw the first thing I see. To me it is like looking for shapes in clouds: I articulate what I see in the paper by outlining it in ink and annotating the shapes with pattern, light, and shadow. This work is informed by a rigorous and direct study of Italian grotesques, best documented by Alessandra Zamperini. Grotesques are small surface frescoes within architecture, a capricious catalog of life, possessions, fairy tales, and monsters. Taking cues from this, my work confounds logical space and threads a narrative though uncanny juxtapositions. In it I explore places where, as Kristeva observes, symbolic meaning collapses.
There are over 120 unique images in the series.
Original drawings are available through Gallery Kayafas. Digital prints are available online at Society6.
The Marbled Prints are silkscreen editions based on these drawings.
#33 Tree Hive, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#17 We Went So Fast Our Souls Fell Out, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#78 Rolling Tracts of Land From the Straits of Mackinaw, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#86 Winning Hearts and Lips in the War Era, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#102 Colombia, Vultures Everywhere, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#100 The Map Room, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#74 A Piece of Soul in The Yellow Balloon Escaping Velocity, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#60 The Elephant Train Out of Cypress, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#23 Come All Ye Annoying Little Children and Bring Tidings of the Mechanical Spirit, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#62 Bond #2, Ultraman forced to face the FireMaster, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#66 Bond #6, in Which Ultraman is Forced to Confront his more Feminine Side, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#54 Lascaux or The Red Bison's Meeting with the Red Capped Mushroom Brigade, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#40 Skull Screw, Stop at the Sign of the Hung Wolf, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
#44 The Zoo Spores will Repopulate Soon After the Apocalypse, acrylic and pigment ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, 2016
