Artwork Description

This pair of paintings, titled "Lux Interior," pay homage to the leader, vocalist, and frontman of the band The Cramps—though, of course, the "frontwoman" and bassist Poison Ivy cannot be ignored; she lives on, Lux is dead... The paintings explore precisely what remains after the spark of life is extinguished: what becomes of the "inner light"? What remains is memories of memories, distortions, infinite sorrows, and layer upon layer of experiences worn smooth by oblivion. The technique itself treats the materials as the very embodiment of a block of memories: the canvases are ancient, bearing the traces of thousands of failed attempts to capture an image—fabric caked in thick, old paint... Time and again—*pentimenti*, regrets or second thoughts—the final layer of text and image is applied: scattered memories, fractured fairy tales. It is worth noting that the imagery—resembling cutouts, or things snipped and pasted—alludes to William Burroughs (and the "cut-up" method he developed with Brion Gisin) while simultaneously evoking the paper cutouts Hans Christian Andersen used to magically adorn and illustrate his own stories. In this specific instance—for these "tombstone X-rays," as it were—the Andersen tale that served as the greatest inspiration (or the one I "stole" from most heavily) was "The Traveling Companion." The impression these paintings aim to leave on the viewer is one of hope—of finding that "inner light," if not in this world, then in the next...