When looking at paintings from the past, especially those that deviate from the rigidity of Western perspective, one can begin to notice certain spatial inconsistencies. Take for example an image that presents two assertions of space, each valid and persuasive in its respective logic, yet together they are incompatible, absurd. Both assertions remain in flux, each compe ting with equal power, yet neither dominates nor subsides. The overlapping forms in a Ravenna mosaic, or the meeting of edges in a Morandi still life exemplify this perpetual shifting of relations. Such instances of spatial paradox expose the seams of an image and indicate the fault lines beneath its construction.

The present group of paintings takes this uncertainty of spatial relationships and its force exerted on the body of the viewer as points of departure. The paintings draw from a concurrent group of works on paper, which originated as bound pages within a book. The book format lent itself to a repetition of “motifs,” and set the conditions for the paintings to develop as variations on a theme. The themes are not ostensibly namable subjects, yet still make use of recurring components and operations. The works on paper are approached as both im age and object. A painting may be from a previous drawing—the former taking the latter as a direct referent. Another painting may rather be of a prior drawing—the former depicting the latter as an object in space. Sometimes this shift occurs within the same painting.

The paintings have at once a centrifugal and centripetal existence: several overemphasize and restate the certainty of their external delimitations, while conversely alluding to their possible status as a detail, an excerpt. The repetition and shifting of motifs across multiple paintings construct modes of framing, and place an image “into infinity.” Each painting reconstitutes a fragment, by focusing in on a piece and organizing a new whole, but one that is noted for its dissimilarity and non-mimetic character. The operation of abstraction is here tied to a process of un-naming. The paintings seek to find an image of a sensation that is experienced before its cause can be determined, before a name seals its identity.