Nine paintings, Gouache on paper, 8″x8″ each, 2012
A friend found a 40+ snapshots “in a dumpster.” They appear to show a bachelor party — or maybe just a bunch of business men in a hotel suite — with a stripper, in the 80s or early 90s. Following the logic and palette of Josef Albers’ “Homage to the Square” color studies, I made formal color paintings from the shapes in the photos. This mashup of two distinct representational genres enables a dual way of looking at these images — seeing color as neutral optical effects and something more titillating. The perceptual and formal color relationships (“chromatic interactions”) merge or clash with the curious social dynamics and power relations of the imagery.