10 September 2025
These new works are finding their stride through a combination of clear gesso, graphite, acrylic, oil, and colored pencil—usually in that order. Keeping acrylic, pencils, and oil on hand as the three main players during the actual image-making has created a nimble kind of rhythm in which dead ends with one medium turn into fresh starts with another, but it has also got me thinking about material hierarchies. I'm wary of veering too far into formal territory, (I'm reminded again of Judd writing about how, in his estimation, Joseph Stella over-prioritized technical experimentation at the expense of ideas), but I do think there is something about the interplay between these materials when permanence is a factor; wax colored pencils and oil don't mix, so there's a finality to the choices made in colored pencil, a commitment to an irreversible decision that is really working for me right now. And also seems like it could be somehow wrapped up in what I'm getting at with this comparison of what isolation/solitude meant in the second half of the 20th century and what it means in the first two decades of the 21st. Words exiting one's mind through one's mouth on their way to someone else seems like a more permanent action than saying it to your AI friend (literally—in my head I'm referring to that new wearable AI “Friend” product).