Introduction
i got the idea for this work by seeing someone try something similar, but a little different, then trying to imitate it, then getting something completely else again. i make these smallish; they are sitting within an 8x10 canvas and the gold stretches through a little more than half of that. and lastly, this process fulfills an internal glee in that it combines high and low art to make. gold leaf combined with photo copying machines. it's a perversion of materials to the highest degree, and i love the final result--one that will always be in large part an effect of a machine, something i have little or no control over.
one challenge with this series is to come up with subjects that are appropriate for the materials used. obviously, gold has connotations of memorialization, intimacy, preciousness and icon-making. i've always wanted to do something with the nudes i've made over the years, having a special fondness for the genre (i was an artist's model myself for five years).
i'm aware that they could be construed as some ritualistic iconization of female beauty, thereby reinforcing culturally constructed stereotypes of beauty and form, but i just don't care anymore. i am stodgy in my aesthetic bents, and i still love beauty for beauty's sake, however unpopular that may make me in hip, bespeckled post-post modernist circles.
