I am a painter of objects.
I paint things which, after they have caught my eye,
linger in my imagination.

The image may stay with me a week, or a month before I decide to work.

As I paint, it's of great importance for me to aim for accuracy.
But what is accuracy in the depiction of things?
The more I try to be accurate, the more I see each painting as an inventory of mistakes.

It's absurd to attempt an accurate depiction of an object for, in a sense,
one is taking on infinity.
For me, this perception of infinity is not just the measure
of particles which comprise an object, but the measure
of a painting as a particle in the infinity of time.

Many of the objects I choose to paint are manufactured very quickly,
yet I feel compelled to work for many hours to represent them.
Much of the subject matter is a product of mass media,
mass production and, as such, is designed for mass appeal.

It seems to go without saying that no image can be taken at face value,
but the process of meticulous copying
reveals many layers of unforeseen meaning.

Some of my choices, pulp romance novels for instance, might seem to be in bad taste.
It is not my aim to satirize bad taste but, rather, to question what it is these artifacts, impeccably designed in their way,
truly represent.

I have chosen to copy a number of news media photographs.
These first caught my eye in an antique store.
They are for press releases and most date from the 1940's.
Due to editorial selection processes and the censorship of the military authorities,
a photographer's work would be reduced from scores
of shots of an event to one suitable for a mass audience.

This need for acceptable images seems to have
resulted in compositions reminiscent of the epic
history and genre painters of earlier times.

Yet, upon first seeing them, I was struck by how current they seem.
The horizontal line pattern, which results
from the telegraphic process used to send information
from Europe to the United States,
bears a striking resemblance to the texture of
video tape footage seen
on television news today.

When painting the pieces involving crowd scenes,
I often encounter faces I'd initially overlooked.
The sense of recognition is haunting. I feel kinship with these people,
often my own age or younger,
caught in the upheavals of human conflict.