26 September 2025
“I’ve always tried to define parameters for the drawings or paintings according to some organizing principle. It can be anything from an idea about acoustic space to the color range of a particular pigment. The goal is to construct a picture that is autonomous and at the same time suggests multiple associations or readings. That’s the tension, that’s where the traction is. Between image and organizing principle.“—Terry Winters
This quote was included in the release for Table of Contents, Winters's 2021 show at Matthew Marks. It gets close to articulating what has become my process, though I think about it as more of a three-pronged approach comprised of the foundational image/forms, (flexible but not so much that it relies on the emergence of spontaneous forms to cohere, i.e. autonomous), color, and a formal or ideological organizing principle other than color—line, composition, technical application of paint, possible emotional relationships, etc. But held loosely enough to resist any sort of preconceived expectations.
For example: tomorrow I'll be going into the studio to begin with a screenshot of a man with his hands bound behind his back from an anti-meth commercial my father directed years ago (foundational image), a work titled Male Nude NM124 (1965 & 1973) by Paul Cadmus (color), and a 1971 intaglio engraving by Dieter Roth titled Little Cloud (organizing principle—line, used in a rhythm as a slowly expanding or contracting grid).
While each new work inevitably diverges to some extent in the making, (again, no preconceived expectations) this structure has allowed me to deepen my connection with specific art historical works, which I have to trust as a path toward hacking away at the tangle covering what I'm circling around.