I’m happy to share that my painting entitled ‘Temporary Restraining Order’ was accepted into the de Young Open 2023 exhibit at the de Young Museum. The painting is an amalgam of just about every technique I’ve developed over the last 30+ years.
When I first started painting and exhibiting my work it was often described as a modern version of Rube Goldberg and Leonardo da Vinci with some Walter Tandy Murch thrown in for good measure. As time has passed and my style has evolved my hope is that my renditions of the genre grant me my own space in the art pantheon and provide me with ample opportunities to create and show more of my work in the future.
As to the painting, the title was inspired by the TV show called 'Suits' which was a fast-paced portrayal of attorneys at work doing ‘legal stuff' to win their cases. The variety of 'games' that they played reminded me of the complex entanglements and contingencies of contemporary ‘life’ so I tried to portray that with the imagery of the work. The work features my typical mechanical items and colored pencil lines as well as new items that I created on my laser cutter. As always, my work is meant to open up the viewers imagination so connections could be made to anything legal and political (gun law, capitol riots, protests, etc.) but it could also be enjoyed as just a painting itself with no objective higher than being crafted very well.
The de Young Open 2023, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s second triennial juried community art exhibition, features work by artists from the nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Artworks are hung salon-style and installed nearly edge to edge and floor to ceiling in the de Young museum’s Herbst Exhibition Galleries, maximizing the number of works on view. Designed to celebrate and support our local arts communities, The de Young Open 2023 invites you to see the creativity of the Bay Area under one roof—you might even find an artwork to make your own!*
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