Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I am a painter primarily known for my allegorical paintings consisting of thousands of details, multiple figures and complex technique. Sexual desire, social and political mores preoccupied my work in the 1990s. The paintings were populated by death heads, flayed flesh, tableaux, and timelines of my sexual partners. In the following decade, gun violence, overabundance, inflated and collapsing real estate, and financial markets preoccupied my work. Political engagement has long been a focus, and I have developed several projects designed to raise money for Senate campaigns, The Brady Campaign against Gun Violence, and Presidential campaigns.

While At Headlands

I have been working on a monumental project for the last eight years. I began it with Hillary Clinton’s first failed bid at the Presidency. It’s title, “What Women Lost,” references Betty Friedan’s assertion that while men are busy accumulating power and money, women are busy losing weight in order to appear more attractive. The project includes a large-scale painting, working drawing, forty-five individual portraits of the US Presidents that were sold to benefit the Brady Campaign against gun violence, live performance painting, and video. At Headlands, it is my intent to develop the large-scale painting to the point that, when the United States elects it first female President, I will be poised to complete it.