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These portraits are no one in particular. They are created from an amalgam of curious traits, defects, and memories reconstructed from the pieces and parts of people I have known, wished I had known, or wished I had avoided. These parts taken together become portrait constructs, like the make believe friends children create, only these characters are meant for an adult audience and they are on the stage, unhidden, for anyone to see. Like all of my work, these characters reveal senses, impulses, and unconscious themes in my own experience heretofore hidden from self view. Permitting myself to conjure these urges and desires and fears on to a physical painted stage helps me find my bearings in an otherwise confusing, sometimes themeless, reality at a very deep level.
Lately these characters have aggregated into communities ready for the stage (i.e. an exhibition), but unlike a play with a clear plot and sequential order, my character aggregations do not seek answers and moral certitude. Like the reality I know, merely assembling a group of characters in one place does not guarantee a clear theme, but it might lead to a party or a riot, you never know. Along with one, two, or more people, recent work has focused on the stage. The number and type of props that have lately appeared continue to evolve, though many themes from my dreamscape work have popped up, such as palm trees, houses, and beasts.
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