The Desert

(after Saint Francis in the Desert by Giovanni Bellini)
Oil on Linen
2012
16”H x 20”W

Painted from the same vantage point depicted by Bellini, this painting is illuminated by soft moonlight rather than Francis’ epiphany. The purpose of this painting is turn the dazzling kinetic power of the original, which used Francis as its fulcrum, into an inwardly rolling landscape which hums with potential.

Hung

(after Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, closed, by Hieronymus Bosch)
Graphite and Acrylic on paper
2011
54”H 24”W

The Bosch composition, bisected by a seam where the two outer panel meet, bares a striking similarity to the description offered by Milton of the newly minted Earth as seen by the devil in Paradise Lost. This work reconciles these two visions and recasts the seam that is structural in Bosch, or the pendulum string of Milton, as an axis holding the new composition taught as it spins and peels apart.

Longing

(after Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden)
Oil on Oak Panel
2013
24”H 12”W

Her fingers, spider-like, appear to be crawling up her electric blue thigh toward the wounded limb that hangs limp just above. His wound is explicitly feminine, and the question is whether or not her purity is any match for such an infliction.

Act

(after Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio)
Oil on Aluminum
2013
9”H 4.5”W

Giving the composition a quarter turn, and cropping out the identities of the participants, certainly blurs the act being performed. But the proposition espoused by the original remains intact in the new composition; there are frightening and wonderful things at the crossroads of trust and permission.

Wandering Shadows

(after Fight with Cudgels by Goya)
Oil on Linen
2014
11”H 19.5”W

The new composition takes the inevitable act of violence depicted in the original, and turns it into an explosion of light and movement. The mass of the two giants fighting has been projected into the cloud behind them, and the site of their dual blow becomes the origin of the sunrise, illuminating their fleeting forms.

Afterglow

(after Fight with Cudgels by Goya)
Graphite on Paper
2014
11”H 19.5”W

A perspectival study for the painting The Break of Day using force rather than light to disintegrate the dueling strangers.

Temple

Oil on two Panels, attached to plywood
2014
12”H 24”W

This is not a translation from an individual work, but rather an architectural sketch of a place of worship through the imagined lens of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy.

In the Flesh

Solidified oil paint, paint tube, brass tacks on paper
2010
6”H 6”W

It began as a kind of joke on Francis Bacon, and Clement Greenberg. Once finished it acted as a reminder of the role that oil paint played in transforming The Word into flesh during the 15th century.

Precarious Boulder

(after Woman Ironing by Picasso)
Graphite and Acrylic on Linen
2015
48”H 29”W

The basic form of the hunched woman is borrowed from Woman Ironing, but recast as an eroding mass. Like the original she is stoic, and both living and dead at the same moment.

Feedback

(after Ecce Homo by Adriaen Isenbrandt)
Acrylic Screen Print on Black Linen, stretched over wooden dome
2016
36”H x 36”W x 2” at center of dome, tapering to 1/8” at edges

Imagined as a reflection off an enormous cornea, this feedback is a fish-eyed painting by Isenbrandt. The frontal qualities of the original are haunting; they appear to belong to the language of mirror gazing. In my work the viewer is transformed into Christ looking for his reflection in the eye of another.

Androgyne

(after Love Conquers All by Caravaggio)
Oil on Linen
2019
14"H x 9.5"W

Found in Translation Catalog

Images and original text by the artist, with additional text fragments from others.
Compiled for the Exhibition Found in Translation at La Bodega Gallery, Brooklyn
8"H x 6"W, 32 pages, Book layout by DelanyChloe
April, 2019, Edition of 30