BCT Collaboration: A Number
The subject of cloning for my latest body of work was inspired by my first born. Matthew is the artistic director for Boise Contemporary Theater. He selected the play “a number” by Caryl Churchill to be part of the current BCT season. Matt and I have collaborated on other projects; we felt it was the perfect time to do so again. To work together as artists and fittingly as parent and child seems to be part of the script. To address the complex issue of cloning visually, I must first simplify it. Cloning, ethics aside, is to copy, repeat, duplicate, much the same as print making. As a painter I utilize print making techniques in my work. This practice started primarily with my MFA thesis production. I am employing pattern from many different sources, including stamps for text. The layering of implied texture is my way of exploring genetic mapping. The choice to vary the image was a deliberate effort to show the human hand in the procedure. My decision to work on like size canvas with varying fields of ground color is my attempt to replicate one facet of the storyline; the same person born into different environments. Nature versus nurture, an age old question answered in the visual sense. I began with six canvases painting the ground primary and secondary colors. My intent was to follow the natural color spectrum in my presentation. That objective changed. The complementary color became reversed in its counterpart and the creation of pairs evolved. The diptych format speaks more clearly to the content of cloning. It is crucial that my paintings work as a whole and at the same time stand alone.
