Here is the completed Tags piece- with me standing in it for staffage. I wanted the tags, filled with faces, to come around the viewer and feel like a hug or at least give the impression of a densely populated space.
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Detail of some of the paintings. I started this project in January of this year and painted nearly 500 tags with gouache. Each tag only had one person painted on each one.
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This piece was on the wall perpendicular to the tags. I made 8 ‘dioramas’ out of paper and hung them on strings. Poking through the outside of the box were metal pins. Most were folded down, but others stuck straight out, creating a somewhat uninviting exterior.
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Each of the pins were actually part of a ‘pin ticket’ (a tiny 11/2″ by 2″ card) that I had done drawings on and then pushed through to the outside of the box.
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Most of the pin tickets (which say “Sale Price” at the top) also had tiny pen drawings on them- many of people, either singular or together, but some of feet, bananas, pets, bikes, and other everyday objects. At the back of each box was a mirror, so when the viewer looks inside the box they see a reflection of the interior space, making it look twice as big. They also see their own eye reflected in the mirror, making the viewer become a part of the work.
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The third piece I included in the show were the clay faces that I have been working on since October 2009. Inspired by Daumier caricature busts, I made 40 faces out of air-drying clay.
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A close up and a side view. This winter I started making some of the faces smaller, or ‘submerged’, so they didn’t have ears showing, or only a nose and some eyes. I was interested in making the faces look like they were emerging from water, but despite many, many tries, I was unable to make that happen for the show. In the end, I’m glad I just showed them how they were without trying to add any other materials.
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Each face was unique. Some of them were silly, like the one above, but most had average expressions of content, happiness or confusion.