I Can Hear Them Talking
Giclee Print
11" x 14"
100% Cotton Rag
Acid-Free, Archival
230 gsm
 
Hand signed and numbered with pencil
Limited Edition of 10
 
The original paintings developed from my interest in human relationships. Much of my work has been about what it means to belong to a community and how we can determine someone's right to belong. These paintings place mysterious yet semi-human figures against a midwest inspired landscape. In both I sense a feeling of liminality where the subject is between stages of life and in a state of growth/change. Areas of the images are rendered fully and explicitly to reveal part of the identity, while other areas remain ambiguous and yet to be defined. I like this balance because it encourages me to remain open to the definitions of ourselves. As humans we carry a lot of responsibility when making associations of places and the people who should occupy them.
 
In I Can Hear Them Talking, the painting was made with multiple layers of paint. Through the pristine reproduction we can see some of those earlier layers of color beneath the warm surface. History is visualized when we layer color in our paintings. I particularly enjoy taking opportunities to embed visual information between these layers of transparency to give my forms an illusion of space, mystery, and distance from the surface. The subject in the painting is being surrounded by an ambiguous green bubble-like shape. We don't know if this shape is good or bad for the subject, but either way it has an enticing quality in the way it wraps the figure towards the boundary of the picture plane. As a viewer we watch as this subject faces the direction of the green shape with only a nose and ear to sense its surroundings. I wonder whether I'm witnessing a moment of vulnerability or independent willingness of the figure following this shape. Perhaps the image is less didactic and my interpretation could change over time. 
 
The print reproduces the original painting at a slightly larger than life-size scale. The surface details and textures in the prints mimic the surface of the original painting identically. With the quality of the inks and paper these prints could last at least 100 years. 
 
Ships in a plastic sleeve inside a tube or a flat envelope with backing board and a signed certificate of authenticity.