I enjoyed a solo exhibition recently at Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Frank’s. The exhibition, which combined small paintings and other mixed media pieces, was called Together & By Ourselves.

For almost a year I’ve been working on small paintings that encapsulate the experiences I’ve had in my life. They’re inspired by time, place, loss and change, each one painted to express a single memory, a very brief moment in time. 

The stories told through color, texture and composition span the country, from Philly and New York City to Los Angeles, and are heavily influenced by the seasons, the people I know and the time I have spent alone. As artists, we tend to spend much of our time alone, either thinking about the work we do or actually making it in our studios. I’d describe these paintings as visual poems. Together, they express the enormity that sometimes the most dramatic and even small experiences can have in our lives, adding up to a very singular, very personal chronicle about the passage of time and the feelings that can accumulate over hours, days and even a year. 

The works are designed to be shown together as an abstract installation to create a singular whole. My hope is that collectors can become part of the experience when they purchase select pieces, which can stand alone or in small groups. Empty space at the end of this show will represent the people and places we may miss, the things we are sometimes nostalgic for, our own losses and gains. In this way, the pieces that are taken to new homes will become as important as the installation in its entirety. For me, it’s about telling the stories and ultimately letting them go. 

On a personal level, my own year has been filled with gratefulness and grief, sadness and success. The paintings, from the smallest to the largest (which is, indeed, about an afternoon I spent at Frank’s), express a wide range of emotions we tend to have, often simultaneously. I tend to work using symbols and lines to create portals into my life, a place that can be noisy and calm depending on the day. This is my world as I see it. I share it in hopes that perhaps people may find connection, to ultimately create a conversation and to be together, maybe even feel a little less alone. 

As an aside, the three-dimensional and mixed media works in the case were also created during this same time period, but with different goals in mind. Many are inspired by the street art I see when I walk around my favorite cities, places I consider the most public galleries. They are also part of a series of materials I seek out to upcycle into new art without having to create waste. I think of these works as more sustainable art, inspired, in part, by Marcel Duchamp’s Ready Mades, objects he also found and made into a new form of visual art. The sculptural pieces are being shown for the first time in public. They draw from architectural, graffiti and Cubist influences, as well as satire about what defines “art.”