Pieces Missing

In the series of works on paper titled, "Pieces Missing", unusual, "chopped-up" formats underscore a conceptual foundation of fragmentation and nostalgia for America’s past. World War II and Vietnam era photos and small objects such as insects, pencils, thread, and steel wool are encased in gel medium. Pieces of the format itself are missing and/or made ragged by dull scissors, blades, and hole punches. Portions of the works are hacked away leaving negative space and small pieces are secured back onto the work. This juxtaposition of image and void provides for situations that are dense with psychological impact and circumstance as viewers explore multiple layers of meaning via additive and reductive surfaces. In "Air Force One at the Burbank Airport August 1969" a mother faces the viewer with a look of purpose and pride. A political button is pinned to her blouse. Her son stands with his back to the viewer looking down the runway.

In the background, unidentified political figures descend the gangplank of Air Force One as a lone police officer provides security. The top right hand corner of the photograph is eaten away and a small flying insect pointing downward is frozen in gel medium. This scenario may prompt several questions. What are the central characters thinking? Will the boy retain this memory and to what extent will the experience shape his political beliefs? How do conditions such as the one depicted establish individual notions of patriotism and how do these notions change with the passage of time? "Stahlman Catches Some Rest", another work from the "Pieces Missing" series, depicts a resting soldier with his head propped onto a makeshift pillow and hands folded. The paper around him is missing and jagged which serves to isolate the figure at the bottom center of the larger rectangular format. A small blurry sepia tone portrait of a young man, deliberately cut in half and cut out of the format then pasted back in, hovers in what appears to be a bubble above the soldiers head as if the central figure is dreaming. What is the relationship between these two figures? Is the floating man a fallen comrade, a family member, or maybe a friend?