Last year I started making paintings of reflections on glass. I see the reflections as a way to incorporate abstraction into images that remain faithful to the observed world.
The painted reflections act both as marks and as depiction, and fluctuate between flatness and depth. They confound the viewer’s sense of placement. Psychologically, the glass pane acts as a barrier: it emphasizes a distance between viewer and subject. The Great Wall of China is painted as a poster in a Brooklyn restaurant, and American period furniture is painted from a display in the Metropolitan Museum. I can thus take on the impractical romance of these subjects without treading into fantasy and stories. The work engages material fact, but also deals with things that are distant in both time and place.