TrépanierBaer Gallery (Calgary)

Describe your studio/place of work. What is important to you about your workspace?

My studio is more in the form of an exhibition space than a workspace, which works for me because I have more difficulty stepping away from the work then getting into it. I'm lucky to have found a studio with lots of natural light. Too much light really. In LA it is bright always.

How would you describe your practice? 

How has your practice evolved over time?

I can describe the change simply in terms of material. Over the last 15 years I've moved from canvas to polyester to vinyl to mesh and now to cold-pressed steel as the grounds for my paintings. This is the heaviest material I've investigated.

The new work looks light but is actually quite heavy, which synchs up with my sensibility.

What works can we expect to see at Art Toronto 2018?

A new group of paintings on steel of medium scale. They represent my continued effort at uniting idea and form, contestations and mark-making, delivered through the lens of political caricature and digital experimentalism. The work uses text, but in a way that the line is integrated with the rest of the work, the writing is mostly disguised as drawing. The work is gauged metal, a lot of physical grinding is deployed to create relief. Spatial shifts are almost literal. I try to make some pointed use of the suggestiveness of color
 

What do you want people to take away from your work?

If the work is any good at all then it is unreliable at giving pat answers. I prefer pictures in the form of questions, which might explain the heavy inclusion of punctuation like question marks in this body of work. I've tried to let the struggle remain visible, to build that time into the work. I want people to walk away with the feeling of having taken in a complete picture, something cinematic. A hallucination would be ideal.