For Bob, to our unfinished conversation

It was suggested that I start with a self-portrait. However, the twelve paintings of myself that followed did not do so as portraits of my character any more than they remain completely faithful to my outward appearance. My form became a surface that I draped with the dresses of martyrs. I peeled crimson paint from the canvases of masters in hopes to borrow a few moments in which to bleed.

Death is a persistent thought. I see the absurdity of living immersed in a culture where the world’s suffering becomes a spectator sport that can be watched comfortably from living room couches. Without knowing a real struggle, I foolishly imagine death: blinding white drenched in heavy red, blood in the snow, and silence.

For this series, I searched art history for images that portrayed blood. Not mere cuts that bled, but wounds of symbolic selflessness, struggle, accomplishment. Some portrayed martyrs bleeding for a cause. Some bled in personal torment. I found that the pain of assassination disappeared under the serene face of Marat and that glowing hollow of Cato’s chest betrayed his silent screams of pain. I saw blood in the innocent cloth held by Soutine’s pastry chef, I opened the cut under Van Gogh’s bandage, and I imagined the life flowing out onto the sash of Dali’s dreamer. To my body, I pinned on the wounds like costumes, playing dress up with cultural, political, religious and personal artifacts borrowed from history. Sometimes I felt content. At other times I felt disgusted. Often, I was indifferent.

In starting with a self-portrait, I ended up with twelve women each in silent reflection as red paint stained their fingertips, blinded their vision, and soaked their bed sheets. Blood is a persistent image in my mind, conjuring thoughts of not only death, but also life. Sometimes between white light and black shadows there appear sanguine incidents of red.