Solo exhibition at thirtyninehotel, November 2007

While I chose to keep the book series going, this show saw a shift in my work that is apparent with the first painting I did for it… in which the figure, something I had worked with continuously throughout my life, had its back turned to the viewer.  The rest of the work was completely absent the figure.   At the opening, my mother surprisingly commented, “I think that will be the last figure you paint for a long time.”

This shift away from the figure signified the fact that I had stopped looking inward and started examining the environment around me.  The wave patterns broke from being repetitive elements and I started to explore the fluidity of line that I encountered while working on the Fish Mural earlier that year.  I started to see similarities between these delicate lyrical forms and the lines formed by incredibly massive concrete overpasses.  With all the weight and solidity these man made structures had, they still retained these beautiful arching lines.   This was very interesting to me.

So as I got further into the drawings and paintings, I studied these overpasses more and more.  Eventually driving the length of H1 several times just to get photographs so that I could study them in my studio.  Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation as I worked to complete the pieces for my upcoming show, but I began to see these massive concrete structures as very charged objects… man made giants ferrying people from one side to another, across these rivers of traffic.   They eventually worked their way very prominently into the show.

The end result was much more ambiguous than my earlier work, which was already ambiguous in nature.  But because it was so ambiguous, without the worry of narrative, I was able to continue experimenting not just with form, but with medium.  In addition to drawing and painting, I worked with concrete, plexi-glass, vinyl cut, and old telephone wire that my grandmother had given me.  So the work began to take on a more sculptural feel.

KPICASA_GALLERY(BookThreeStill)