The Present Plague

The inspiration for the series came while sheltering in place in a temporary rental apartment. Without access to a regular studio and unable to work on my regular pieces, I began painting on a discarded plywood panel I found in my office. Sent home from my day job and painting in a hallway, I felt like I was holding some sort of vigil.


The works are all still life paintings themed for both the month in which they were created, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Items in the paintings were largely either already in my home or obtained from the weekly trips to the supermarket. Paradoxically, isolating at home made me feel both removed from the rest of the world and hyper-aware of current events because I had become obsessed with the news. Many doom-scrolling sessions resulted in some of the texts or objects that appear in the paintings. Themes and stories emerge from the ideas connected to the various items on display. Placed in a larger context they represent various ideas, time periods, fads, places, autobiographical details, almost anything at all, or potentially nothing. The series is my attempt at the search for order and comprehension in a world that is increasingly neither orderly nor conherent.




The Present Plague opens August 14th 2021 at Gallery 825, West Hollywood CA