Just a scratch?

Fine Lines: Finish Line, 2001, 74" x 148", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

Fine Lines, the cycle of large-scale paintings with life-size figures, interact with a line that is both allegorical and physical. The ontological drive to find the origins of painting, capture the beast through mimetic representation; embrace love by tracing its shadow is as eternal and ubiquitous as it is insatiable.

Fine Lines: Finish Line, detail, 2001, 74" x 148", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

Bearing the essentialist measure that is as crooked and collapsible and dangerous as objectivity is a hard act to follow.

Fine Lines: Border Line, 2001, 94" x 96", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

The paintings consist of multiple panels painted in one configuration, which are then rearranged for display. A quartered figure, suffering no longer re-membered, becomes the now marginalized cardinal cosmological image.

Fine Lines: Blood Line, 2001, 34" x 48", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

As with the cycle as a whole, decomposition of a single figure creates a dialog with the self and entertains issues of support, self-definition, and autonomy. Through altered compositions, the series critically gazes at: the modernist longing to be present at one's own birth, the premise of inventing oneself, and the fantasy of independence.

 

Fine Lines: Moral Line, 2001, 104 3/4" x 82 3/4", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

Morality, ever beyond reach, is approached with zeal from afar but re-contextualized at our convenience. Play freely with constantly shifting higher standards and you may make it to the top.

Fine Lines: Hard Line, 2001, 94" x 96", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

Austerity measures may be a hard line to take as well as swallow, but our assertions that they will elevate you after all is perpetually regurgitated.

Fine Lines: Chorus Line, 2001, 74" x 148", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

These literally tarnished and rusted male portraits are hardly icons of an unabashed patriarchy. While the man of iron deteriorates, his scared shadows dance on. Struggle for dominance remains a high wire act. Who upholds our greed? Do those beneath our contempt deserve our understanding? At whose expense do we support none but ourselves while pretending to offer a foothold to others?

Fine Lines: Chorus Line, 2001, 74" x 148", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

The Diaspora within the self welts up out of control. Double consciousness and standards abound; schizophrenic capitalism keeps us in step, while the upper echelons sing along.

Fine Lines: Bottom Line, 2001, 37 1/2" x 37 1/2", tarnished iron, copper, acrylic on canvas

It all comes down to economics in the end.