Patricia Buck

Work samples

Bull's-eye

This painting both consolidates and intensifies a motif which has appeared in my art for forty-five years. In Bull's-Eye, the circles are richly colored, uniform, and tightly packed, sharing a multi-layered translucence. The painting pulses with visual energy immersing the viewer in a wall of energetic color.
Bulls-eye exhibited in A Survey of Women Artists of the District, Maryland, Virginia, (DMV) in 2025.
SOLD.
Something hidden

This composition reveals a dispersed atmosphere where circular forms pulse as independent entities floating across a chromatic fied of green, yellow and pink. Ridgid structure dissapates and concentric units are staggered in the foreground and recede into the back. Textured brushwork and layered glazing amplify the feeling of movement and emergence, reinforcing the tension between order and improvisation. The result is a composition that is both contemplative, colorful and subdued. As a visual language, the circles evoke associations with cellular structures, life forms, or celestial constellations—suggesting a reference to micro and macro simultaneously.

Available for Purchase

This painting is on exhibition Jan 11-May 3, 2026 at Hill Center Galleries in Washington, DC. If you would like to purchase it, please contact the artist.
$1500 unframed; $2000 framed in a custom walnut float frame.
Little Galaxies

This painting evokes a deep, cosmic atmosphere; a window into a mysterious, energetic universe. The overall palette is dark— saturated with purples, blacks, and deep blues, punctuated by highlights of violet, lavender, and bits of pale blue, white, and yellow.
The painting is powerful and ambiguous, it can be read as both macroscopic (space, galaxies, dark matter) or microscopic (cells, and atoms).
Brushstrokes are layered, creating an immersive sense of depth. There is a nebula-like motion to the marks, with areas that look like they’re pulsing or in flux. Dotted lines of white and yellow beads or sparks drift through the piece like constellations. The edges glow with light—especially the bottom and right side where streaks of yellow and violet introduce a sense of illumination or emergence from darkness.

Available for Purchase

$1500 unframed, $2000 in a custom bleached maple float frame.
Milleflouri

A dominant circular boundary asserts itself as bothcontainer and field. It functions simultaneously as an organizing geometry and a perceptual threshold: a space within which energy accumulates, disperses and recombines. Unlike earlier works where color-field expansiveness might suggest boundlessness, here the circle introduces a deliberate constraint.

Available for Purchase

$2800 50"Hx 38"W, stretched canvas, Unframed.

About Patricia

Patricia Buck is an American abstract painter based in Maryland, known for large-scale color field paintings, and mixed-media work addressing female experience, social concerns, and phenomenal energy. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Howard University, College of Art in Washington, D.C. (1996) and a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of Maryland, College Park, (1972).

Recent work has been included in multiple exhibitions for 2025-26, including the 2026 East City… more

View Patricia's Resume

Paintings, current

This series continues my sustained investigation of color, pattern, and composition as a visual language that communicates energy beyond the use of language. The picture plane becomes compressed and immersive, it becomes a sustained vehicle of felt experience. Color and repetition take on a psychological and chromatic pulse, and becomes a structuring device.

Bull's-eye

In this work, Bull's-Eye intensifies and consolidates a circular motif used in my work since 1980. The circles become an all-over architecture. There is a sustained optical rhythm as the atmosphere tightens and negative space nearly disappears. The circles are insistently layered creating a sustained optical rhythm across the entire surface. The experience is immersive rather than observational-as though you are inside a vibrating system.
Chromaticaly, this painting is more assertive. Saturated blues and greens lock agains yellows and reds , heightening the contrast and optical resonance.
This work moves toward a constructed visual language, pattern as force.

Sold.
Something hidden

This composition reveals a dispersed atmosphere where circular forms pulse as independent entities floating across a chromatic field of green, yellow and pink. Ridgid structure dissapates and concentric units are staggered in the foreground then recede into the back. Textured brushwork and layered glazing amplify a feeling of movement and emergence, reinforcing the tension between order, and improvisation. The result is a composition that is colorful, contemplative, and subdued.

Available for Purchase

$1800, framed in a custom Walnut float frame. This work is currently on exhibit in Washington, DC until May 3, 2026.
Impact

This work operates as a dense field of chromatic motion. Layered greens, yellows, and aquas are activated by erratic tracings oscillating between control and improvisation. Sweeping arcs and directional brushwork suggest circulating forces—wind, ocean currents, or cognitive flow—while insistent scribbles and marks disrupt a stable reading, introducing tension and velocity. The surface feels continuously worked and reworked, as translucent veils and opaque passages accumulate into a frenzy of gesture and revision. Rather than resolving into image or narrative, the composition demonstrates a heightened state of flux, with sensation supersceding representation. The work asserts color and line as carriers of psychological and physiological energy, situating the painting within an abstract language that resists containment and embraces complexity, immediacy, and embodied perception.
Stasis

This painting operates as an architectural roadmap where a transluscent neutral surface asserts itself with deliberate patterns, like chartings on a map. The painting is conveyed as an abstracted language, structured, contained, and complex.

Available for Purchase

$1800. Acrylic on a closed Birch panel, in a custom Walnut float frame.
Variant, 2025

My work it evolves spontaneously during a contemplative process in my studio. Each stroke of paint and color choice is a call and response to a previous action. This is a small painting where the energy expands beyond the borders of the work. Acrylic painting on cradle panel.

Available for Purchase

https://www.patriciabuckart.com
$800 unframed
Little Galaxies

A dense, nocturnal field is animated by a spray of constellations emitting sparks of light and color. Deep blues, and violets predominate the surface, punctuated by dots that read as stars, particles, or cells in motion. The painting balances opacity with flashes of luminosity, encouraging viewers to question spatial depth. Rather than illustrating an actual universe, this work delivers a quiet study in scale—suggesting growth, pattern, and energy in a microscopic and cosmic dance. It is a reflective piece, grounded in observation, rhythm, and discovery.

Available for Purchase

https://www.patriciabuckart.com
$1800 in a custom-made Walnut float frame.
Millefiori

A dominant circular boundary asserts itself as both container and field. It functions simultaneously as an organizing geometry, and a perceptual threshold: a space within which energy accumulates, disperses, and recombines. Unlike earlier works where color-field expansiveness might suggest boundlessness, here the circle introduces a deliberate constraint. That constraint does not limit expression; it intensifies it. The viewer’s attention is pulled inward, repeatedly, toward a system rather than a scene.

Available for Purchase

$2800. 50"H x 38"W. Acrylic on stretched canvas. Unframed.
Zeros and Ones

Zeros and Ones interprets the process of input and sensing into pattern and symbol, conveying what language is unable to express.
A luminous yellow field is activated by spontaneous marks as random patterns float across the saturated field, generating a visual energy
balanced by randomness and structure.

Available for Purchase

$2800. Acrylic painting on stretched canvas. 50"H x38"W. Unframed.
Bad circuitry

This small painting marks an exploratory yet decisive phase in my development. Here velocity and accumulation take precedence over containment. Working on an intimate scale, colors collide, overlap, and reroute through looping, calligraphic lines that read as random tracings of energy rather than composed forms. The dense chromatic field—dominated by reds, pinks, and electric accents—suggests a field where movement, pressure, and revision are foregrounded. Unlike late works which consolidate and stabilize energy, this painting embraces turbulence and immediacy.

Available for Purchase

$600. Unframed Acrylic on canvas. 10"Hx8"W In a Walnut float frame, $700.
Watching

This vivid, energetic work has undulating, organic forms in electric colors bordered by contrasting hues.
Sensuous forms- ovals, loops, and biomorphic shapes, evoke motion—while colors--neon yellow,
magenta, blue, orange, and purple, amplify energy as they pulse across the canvas.
Dots pull the viewer in, creating a sense of texture and rhythm. A dark background anchors the saturated colors.

Available for Purchase

$1300. Acrylic on stretched canvas. 24"Hx18"W. Unframed.

Light as Primary Material - Reflection and Patterns

Light as Primary Material - Reflection / Refraction

In this photographic series, I’ve turned my attention to light as subject rather than object. Although photographic in medium, these works resonate with my painterly practice. The compositions read as abstractions. The camera becomes a tool not for documentation but for witnessing ephemeral structure: light breaking, scattering, recomposing.

The images isolate fleeting moments on the surface of water, where form dissolves and perception destabilizes. What appears at first to be a watery reflection becomes something more ambiguous: a field of fractured luminosity, where depth and surface continuously exchange roles.

By removing fixed reference points, the artist allows light to function as material. The water acts as both mirror and distortion device, transforming sky, architecture, or surrounding environment into oscillating bands of color and gesture. Each photograph captures an unrepeatable instant in which time, movement, and atmosphere intersect.

Taken together, the series proposes reflection as a metaphor for perception itself. What we see is never stable; it is contingent, shifting, and mediated. These images invite sustained looking, asking the viewer to move beyond recognition and into sensation—into the subtle physiological experience of color, rhythm, and vibration.

Waterborne #27

In this body of photographs, I extend my long-standing investigation of color, vibration, and subliminal perception into the medium of photography.
Waterborne #30

The rippling surface breaks reflected light into chromatic passages that echo the structural rhythms of my painted compositions.
Waterborne 38

As in my paintings, literal imagery dissolves in favor of physiological response. Color and movement precede recognition.
Waterborne #41

While my paintings build abstract fields through layered pigment and pattern, these photographs locate abstraction already present in the natural world—light refracted across moving water.
Waterborne #9

The water becomes a kinetic canvas, and the camera a tool for isolating moments when visual reality reorganizes itself into pure pattern and energy.
Waterborne #3

Each photograph captures an unrepeatable instant in which time, movement, and atmosphere intersect.
Waterborne #7

Bands of light behave like brushstrokes; distortions function as gestural interruptions.
Waterborne #38

Seen within the arc of the artist's practice, these photographs are not departures from abstraction but revelations of it.
Waterborne #26

These photographs reveal that the language the artist constructs with pigment—field, rhythm, chromatic tension—also exists fleetingly in the environment.
Waterborne #26

This series of photographs affirms the artist's core inquiry: how color, light, and structure communicate beyond words, operating directly on perception, and the body.

How does visual structure transmit 'felt' experience beyond language?

In my broader practice, color and pattern function as a visual language capable of transmitting energy without reliance on representation. In this photographic series of ten individuals, that same investigation is redirected toward the human presence itself.

Rather than abstract fields of paint, the body becomes the site of vibration — through posture, proximity, expression, and the spatial relationships between figure and ground.

The photographs do not operate as documentary portraits; instead, they explore how identity, emotion, and interiority register visually as compositional force.

The human figure becomes a living abstraction — a structure of light, rhythm, density, and psychological charge.

Blue woman
Two men
Chris Johnson, Thanksgiving Day
Leah, 2017.
Man on the subway, New York city

Available for Purchase
Mud.
Girls

In this photographic series of ten individuals, that same investigation is redirected toward the human presence itself.

Rather than abstract fields of paint, the body becomes the site of vibration — through posture, proximity, expression, and the spatial relationships between figure and ground.
Leah.

These photographs do not operate as documentary portraits; instead, they explore how identity, emotion, and interiority register visually as compositional force.
Dirty boy

The human figure becomes a living abstraction — a structure of light, rhythm, density, and psychological charge.
Elevator Security, Hirshhorn Museum

Torn Paper series and Energy works. 1981 - 2000

Torn Paper Series & Energy Work, 1981 - 2000.

As an artist I have alway worked with manipulating and representing energy forms. There are times when I sense that I am creating a representation that sees into the basic structure of reality, to a core of energy which inhabits all things. These works represent that need to see beyond the surface of things.

Detail: One Moment in a Day, 1953.

Detail: One Moment in a Day, 1953. Mixed media on paper with collaged torn paper. 63”H x 55”W"
One Moment in a Day, 1953.

One Moment in a Day, 1953. Mixed media and torn paper on paper. 60"H x 55"W.,

My mother, who was born in 1921, was pregnant in 1953 with a third child for our family. The fetus was RH positive. Transfusions were not done at that time. My mother was RH negative. The baby died in utero in the eight month of her pregnancy from hemolytic disease. She had to carry the fetus to term. After the boy was born, she was not permitted to hold or even see the child after its birth.

In knowing her for fifty-nine years before she passed, I believe she didn't recover from that loss. This painting is about the pain of that loss.
Turbulence.

Turbulence, mixed media and torn paper on paper. 20"H x 26"W.
I Am a Ball of Fire.

I Am a Ball of Fire, 1985. 50"H x 50"W. Torn paintings on paper are collaged onto paper.

This painting and several other paintings within this body of work represent my effort to depict my self, freed from the corporeal body I was born into. It is an unanswerable inquiry, but these works attempt to examine it from the perspective of the unconscious mind.
Clearing in the forest, 1983
Demons without Faces II, 1981

Demons Without Faces (30.5”H x 38.25”W diptych) in a New York collection.
Demons Without Faces, 1981

Demons Without Faces (30.5”H x 38.25”W diptych) was purchased by Joseph Hirshhorn at an auction to benefit the Washington Project for the Arts.

The work was bequeathed to the Hirshhorn Museum upon Joe Hirshhorn’s death. The Object Record at the Hirshhorn is .86.661.
Ring of Fire.

Ring of Fire, mixed media on paper with torn paper. 20"H x 26"W.
Sylph.

Sylph. Acrylic on paper, 50"H x 38"W. 1990
What Noise???

What Noise??? Mixed media on canvas. 2000. 84"H x 70"W.

Available for Purchase

Contact the artist for further information.

The Big Women Series, 1997.

This work exhibited at Pirate, an artist cooperative gallery in Denver.

The exhibition included five large paintings of female body parts or faces interspersed with un-stretched canvases of men's eyes. The starkness of monochromatic tones and contrast in scale were important to the social commentary. Both of those elements would be used in subsequent exhibitions in Denver for Genetics/Memetics, and American Girl War.

Representations of women expressing ebullient emotions included Anna Magnani, (Just Laughing), and Maria Callas (One Cannot Be Both), and in your face graphic energy -the outsized vulva (Not a Flower) articulate a range of female power unacceptable in the culture in which I was raised.

On 'Not a Flower,' iridescent pink text becomes thicker and more opaque as it moves down the canvas in the form of an inverted triangle; it reads:

As a child my mother dressed me in pink…

“surrender the pink” means relinquishing

your virtue. At four I was pressed

into ballet lessons. At six, I was

a bride in a Tom Thumb wedding,

my brother was the groom. No one

questioned the incestuous nature of the

Ritual. By age thirteen

my boyish tendencies so

appalled my father, he

made mother enroll me

in “charm” school.

It was then

that I grasped

how deportment

would serve to

emphasize my

difference.

Just Laughing.

Just Laughing. Big Women Series, 1997. 65"H x 60"W. Acrylic on canvas.

This is a painting of Anna Magnani, an Italian actress who lived life 'large'. In the painting she's having a belly laugh. The sheer iridescent text on the canvas reads:

Mirth Madness Hysteria

Hysteria according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition* “is a nervous affliction, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions..."

Available for Purchase

Acrylic on canvas, unstretched, 65"H x 60"W, $8000.
Man #1872.

Man #1872. The Big Women Series, 1997.

One of seven monochromatic paintings of men's eyes on unstretched canvas.

Available for Purchase

Monochromatic unstretched canvas of a man’s eye hidden partly by shadows. Measures 12”x12”. $500.
Not A Flower.

Not A Flower, The Big Women Series. Acrylic on canvas, 1997, 65"H x 60"W.

'Big Women’ exhibited at Pirate Gallery in Denver, Colorado. This over-sized painting (Not a Flower) has autobiographical text stenciled in thick pink impasto arranged in an inverted triangle over the image. The text reads:

As a child my mother dressed me in pink…

“surrender the pink” means relinquishing

your virtue. At four I was pressed

into ballet lessons. At six, I was

a bride in a Tom Thumb wedding,

my brother was the groom. No one

questioned the incestuous nature of the

Ritual. By age thirteen

my boyish tendencies so

appalled my father, he

made mother enroll me

in “charm” school.

It was then

that I grasped

how deportment

would serve to

emphasize my

difference.

Available for Purchase

Over-sized 65”H x 60”W acrylic painting on unstretched canvas, $10,000.
Man #189

Man #189. Big Women Series, 12"x12", unstretched canvas, 1997.

One of seven monochromatic paintings of men's eyes on unstretched canvas.

Available for Purchase

12”x 12” unstretched canvas. Acrylic painting of a man’s eye, $500
One Cannot be Both (Feminine and Adult)

The Big Women Series, One Cannot be Both - Feminine and Adult. 1997. Oil on Canvas, 65”Hx60”W.

This is an over-sized canvas taken from a press photo of Maria Callas. She was screaming back stage at La Scala after a process server handed her a notice to appear in court. The unrestrained rage on her face captured a private moment of pitched emotion which I understood at a visceral level. The transparent iridescent text stenciled on the painting reads:

One Cannot be Both,

Feminine and Adult

By this I mean that constricting your behavior to suit the cultural norm, your power to be authentically yourself is diminished.

Available for Purchase

One Cannot be Both (feminine and adult), Big Women Series. oil on canvas, 65”H x 60”W.
Man #50655.

Man #50655. Big Women Series, 12"x12" unstretched canvas, 1997.

One of seven monochromatic paintings of men's eyes on unstretched canvas.

Available for Purchase

Man #50655. Big Women Series, 12"x12" unstretched canvas, 1997.
Being Versus Seeming.

Being vs Seeming, Big Women Series, 1997. Acrylic on canvas, 65Hx60"W.

In this painting an over-sized breast with with a row of human sensory organs stacked on the side of the canvas.

Available for Purchase

Being Versus Seeming, 1997. Acrylic on canvas, 65”H x 60”W unstretched canvas.
Man #11.

Man #11. Big Women Series, 12"x12" unstretched canvas, 1997.

One of seven monochromatic paintings of men's eyes on unstretched canvas.

Available for Purchase

Unstretched 12”x 12 “canvas painted in monochromatic tones, Man #11. $500
Boy #402822.

Boy #402822. Big Women Series, 12"x12", unstretched canvas, 1997.

One of seven monochromatic paintings of men's eyes on unstretched canvas.

Available for Purchase

Boy #402822. Unstretched painting on canvas, $500.
Doll. No brain. No breath. No juice. No life.

Doll, The Big Women Series. Acrylic on canvas, 65"H x 60"W., 1997.

Transparent, iridescent text on this painting reads:

Doll.

No brain.

No breath.

No juice.

No life.

Available for Purchase

Over-sized painting acrylic on canvas, 65”H x 30”W.

American Girl War, 1997-1998.

American Girl War, installation at Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 1998;

During a residency at Anderson Ranch, I worked on a "Photographic Story-telling" with autobiographical photographs of my own as well as images from a family archive to create a narrative for the story of American Girl War.

The last three works are not part of the installation American Girl War, however, they relate in terms of my experience being a female in this American culture.

American Girl War.

American Girl War, installed at Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 1998.

The Colorado Council for the Arts awarded me a scholarship at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO, to work with Jim Goldberg, author of Raised by Wolves and Philip Brookman, curator of New Media at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in a collaborative workshop on 'Photographic Story-telling'. The result was an autobiographical book of images developed for this installation at EDGE Gallery in Denver CO, 1998.
Room installation: American Girl War

Detail: Acetate panels hang from the ceiling at the installation of American Girl War.

Autobiographical photographs from my childhood and adulthood were used to tell the story. In my collection of fortune cookie 'fortunes' I used one that read, "Nothing is good or bad but by comparison" on the title panel. For me, this articulated a profound inequity that I experienced in our family due to my gender. This installation was cathartic for me as the story of how gender is shaped by culture and family..
American Girl War

American Girl War, installed at Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 1998.

I am known to document my life in photography, and here is photograph of me sobbing uncontrollably from a nightmare in which I discovered my dead brother. He was laid out on a dining room table in my grandparents house.covered by a white sheet. In the dream, I touched his foot, which was cold, and I realized he was dead. The grief of that experience startled me, and I woke up sobbing. This photograph captured that moment, which I never wanted to forget.
Nightmare.

Detail: Acetate panels hang from the ceiling at the installation of American Girl War.

After the Colorado Council for the Arts awarded me a scholarship at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO, to work with Jim Goldberg, and Philip Brookman, in their workshop 'Photographic Story-telling'. I created an autobiographical book of images which I used for this installation at EDGE gallery in Denver.
Detail: Acetate panels hang for the installation of American Girl War.

Detail: Acetate panels hang for the installation of American Girl War.

These vinyl panels, juxtapose a print advertising image of the Maidenform (bra) woman, while the second is a self portrait, unencumbered by restrictive shapers.
American Girl War
Little Patti.

Little Patti, 2011, mixed media photo collage on paper.

The child is six years old in this photograph. Where is her find place in the universe? What rules have been set for her life by her family, by the culture? Will charm school classes be in her future?
Screaming Woman.

Screaming Woman, 1980. 16"H x 12"W. Mixed media on paper.
Media Assault.

Media Assault, mixed media on paper, 1994. 50"H x 38"W.

This work is not part of the American Girl War installation.
Fractured.

Fractured, 1989.

Pencil drawing of a hand pushing toward a face. Painted shards are fracturing out from the center.

Holding the Sacred 1990-91

A solo exhibition, Alla Rogers Gallery, Georgetown, Washington, DC, 1991.

Holding the Sacred, Floating Bronze Vessel

Holding the Sacred, Floating Bronze Vessel, 1992. 50"H x 38"W. Acrylic on paper.

I understood through my metaphysical studies that the human body is a vessel, holding the spirit or soul. All of my earliest work references the descent of spirit into matter, which, in early Christian iconography is represented by the cross- a vertical element intersecting a horizontal element. These works 'Holding the Sacred' reiterate that concept, the descent of spirit into matter.

This series was also influenced by Washington Color School painters including Leon Berkowitz, and Mark Rothko.
Holding the Sacred: Tempest Teacup.

Holding the Sacred: Tempest Teacup, 1991. 50"H x 38"W. Acrylic painting on paper.
Holding the Sacred: Totem Hexagram.

Totem Hexagram, 1990. Acrylic on paper, 28"H x 20"W.

This work is comprised of an underpainting with cut-up pieces of other discarded paintings stacked and collaged one on top of another.

Available for Purchase

Totem Hexagram, 1990. Acrylic on paper, 28"H x 20"W.
Holding the Sacred: I Ching Mandala

Holding the Sacred: The I Ching Mandala, 1990. Acrylic on paper. 26"H x 26"W.

Available for Purchase

Holding the Sacred: The I Ching Mandala, 1990. Acrylic on paper. 26"H x 26"W. Available.
Holding the Sacred: Alchemy - Lead to Ruby

Holding the Sacred: Alchemy - Lead to Ruby, 1991. 50"H X 38"W. Acrylic and mica oxide on paper.

Available for Purchase

This artwork is in the collection of the artist. It is a 50”H x 38” W acrylic painting on Lenox 100 paper, unframed.
Holding the Sacred: Broken Vessel.

Holding the Sacred: Broken Vessel. 1991. Acrylic and collaged painting on paper. 50"W x 38"W.
Holding the Sacred: I Ching with Gold and Lead

Holding the Sacred: I Ching with Gold and Lead, 1990. Acrylic on paper, 38"H x 25"W. SOLD.
International Women's Month, Bejing China. Report for the World Bank meeting-Cover art.jpg

International Women's Month, Cover art. Report for the World Bank meeting-Bejing China.1991

Available for Purchase

This multiple monoprint is one of two created in a workshop with Glen Brill at Pyramid Atlantic. Both prints are available.
Holding the Sacred: Malkuth - Earthbound.

Holding the Sacred: Malkuth, the Small Earth, 1991. 50"H x 38"W. Acrylic and collage on paper.

In the ministerial program (1983-1988), course studies included the Hermetic Qabalah, (derived from the Hebrew Kabbalah) which is considered a fundamental framework for understanding the metaphysical (spiritual) aspects of the universe. Malkuth represents the earth, and the material world. It is in this 'caldron of life', the metaphysician works her way on the path to enlightenment.
Holding the Sacred: Broken Vessel, 1991. Acrylic and collage on paper, 50"H x38"W.

Holding the Sacred: Broken Vessel, 1991. Acrylic and collage on paper, 50"H x38"W.

Genetics/Memetics, 1998.

This work emerged from a single word in 1998, “meme”. I hadn't heard the word before. Google wasn't even a search engine, yet. The word arrived, tumbling out of the the beyond, as the I Ching states, "the beginning of all things lies still in the beyond in the form of ideas that have yet to become real."

After some research I uncovered a science exploring how ideas are transmitted. Merriam-Webster cited first use of the term 'Memetics' in 1984. Today, the term 'meme' is prevalent, but in 1998, it was not common.

Using the idea of cultural transference, I built a room environment juxtaposing the logic of scientific thought with an amalgamation of art historical references, cultural imagery and medical illustrations.

I constructed a maquette miniaturizing the rooms dimensions. I created two contiguous collages to mimic the parallel the walls in the gallery. I worked for months photocopying images in black and white working them into a humourous mash-up of graphics.

I used scale and monochomatic contrast to represent content that was familiar but became subversive.

Some of the imagery included Albrecht Dürer's (1471-1528) engraving of the ‘Four Witches', which I reduced to three, blowing them up them to seven feet tall, and applying animal cartoon heads on them --drawn by 19th century artist/satirist Grandeville (1803-1847). I also added an illustration of cell mitosis in to one of the witches abdomen.

Another cultural reference was Margaret Bourke White’s photograph of ‘Fallow Field.’ By enlarging the scale it became the pathway for a strolling figure of the human circulatory system. Jimmy Durante's nose was enlarged to a scale of ten feet, and I replaced his eye with a vulva. That strong graphic ended of one wall.

I used multiple illustrations from 18th century fashion magazines and medical journals, including the gestational development of human and sheep embryos, political cartoon figures (by Grandeville, “Les Métamorphoses du jour, 1828”) and other recognizable scientific references, art historical and cultural imagery were essential for the visual to succeed.

A Denver businessman generously supported my printing of 1450 feet of large format vellum panels (each one measured thirteen feet long by three feet wide, and I designed a hanging system to display the panels side by side so the room seemed wallpapered with the imagery.

The installation exhibited at Pirate in Denver, 1998, and later at Art-O-Matic in Washington, DC, 2002. The work received a photo review on the front page of the Style section in the Washington Post.

Genetics/Memetics

Genetics/Memetics is an installation I developed for my second solo exhibition in Denver at Pirate Gallery.

The year is 1998, and the term ‘meme’ was not a commonly used word.
Genetics Memetics
Editioned vellum prints, Genetics/Memetics.

Available for Purchase
Genetics/Memetics, Washington, DC.
Genetics/Memetics
Genetics/Memetics
Genetics/Memetics (detail).

Detail: Genetics/Memetics, installed at Pirate Gallery, Denver, 1997.

The walls in the gallery were painted tomato red. Thirty six black and white large format printed velum panels, each measuring 13'Hx3'W, were hung edge to edge from the ceiling to the floor on the walls, forming a uniform wallpapered environment. Three baroque frames hung against the red wall displayed: 1) the head of the first cloned sheep, Dolly; 2) a mirror reflecting the viewer; 3) an drawing of chromosomes at the door into the gallery.
Genetics/Memetics
Genetics/Memetics
G:M Denver-4.jpeg

This installation was created to overwhelm viewers with scale, color and imagery, juxtaposing visual stimuli set in a gallery with solid tomato red walls.

For this installation, I printed thirty six black and white large panels (format printed-each measuring 13'Hx3'W) and painted the gallery walls tomato red.

The installation included a huge Zebra-man image with a jail built of rebar painted black, and an industrial table on which sat a vintage microscope and glass slides viewers could place under the microscope to read ironic koans in minuscule text.

Paintings of the I Ching, 1988-1990

A series of nineteen paintings on paper, 40"x26". 1988-1990.

Paintings of the I Ching emerged from the earlier series, Glyphs & Dyptychs which were a study of the separation of heaven and earth or the material juxtaposed with the divine. The work at this time was influenced by Mark Rothko, Ellesworth Kelly, Ad Reinhardt, Kenneth Nolan and Helen Frankenthaler.

Of the nineteen paintings exhibited at Arnold and Porter, sixteen paintings were sold.

Paintings of the I Ching: Po - Splitting Apart

Paintings of the I Ching: Po - Splitting Apart, 1991. SOLD

In the midst of creating this series, a student/woman I taught in a class on death and dying committed suicide. No one close to her saw it coming. This painting is about her, and her decision to separate from her body.

Available for Purchase

This painting is available as a Giclee print on stretched canvas or on fine art paper. Price is dependent on your size and your choice of support. Please contact the artist to explore pricing.
Paintings of the I Ching: Forest and Iridescence

Paintings of the I Ching: Forest and Iridescence, acrylic on paper. 40"x26".
Paintings of the I Ching: Magenta Light with Copper

Paintings of the I Ching - Magenta Light with Copper, acrylic on paper, 40"H x 26"W. Available.

Available for Purchase

In the collection of the artist.

Paintings of the I Ching: Magenta Light. acrylic and collaged painting on paper. This painting is available as a Giclee print on stretched canvas or on fine art paper. Price is dependent on your size and your choice of support. Please contact the artist to explore pricing.
I Ching: The Infinitesimal Germs of Events

Paintings of the I Ching: The Infinitesimal Germs of Events.
Paintings of the I Ching: The House of Orange Fire

Paintings of the I Ching: House of Orange Fire, acrylic on paper, 40"Hx 28"W, 1991. Available.

Available for Purchase

In the artist’s collection. Mounted on archival paper, mounted in a simple black frame.

This painting is available as a Giclee print on stretched canvas or on fine art paper. Price is dependent on your size and your choice of support. Please contact the artist to explore pricing.
Paintings of the I Ching: Ch'ien - Turquoise Light

Paintings of the I Ching: House of Turquoise Light acrylic on paper, 40"Hx 28"W, 1991.

Available for Purchase

This painting is available as a Giclee print on stretched canvas or on fine art paper. Price is dependent on your size and your choice of support. Please contact the artist to explore pricing.
Paintings of the I Ching: The House of Light

Paintings of the I Ching: House of Light, acrylic on paper, 40"Hx 28"W, 1991.
Paintings of the I Ching: Pastel Light

Paintings of the I Ching: Pastel Light, Pastel on paper, 40"Hx 28"W, 1991.
Paintings of the I Ching: Ch'ien - Climbing the Dragon

Paintings of the I Ching: Ch'ien-Climbing the Dragon, acrylic on paper. 40"H x 26"W.
Paintings of the I Ching: Ch'ien - House of the Creative.

Paintings of the I Ching: Ch'ien - House of the Creative, 1990. Acrylic on paper, 40"H x 26"W.

Figure as Image, Figure as Symbol, 1987-1988.

Figure as Image, Figure as Symbol, 1987-1988. Acrylic on paper, 40"H x 26"W.

This series was created when while I was in the Corcoran Open Program working with Washington Color School artist, Leon Berkowitz. Prior working with him, I had experienced a profound emotional trauma. In working with Berkowitz I was able to bypass my conscious inhibitions to express the rage I had felt. I think that rage shows in the colors and active brush work in these paintings.

Wraith, a self portrait.

Wraith, a self portrait, 1987. Acrylic on paper, 40”H x 26”W. Exhibited At Touchstone Gallery Figure As Image, Figure As Symbol.
Both Sides of His Mouth.

Both Sides of His Mouth, 1987. Acrylic on paper, 40”H x 26”W. Exhibited At Touchstone Gallery in Figure As Image, Figure As Symbol.
Worse Than His Bite.

Worse Than His Bite, 1987. Acrylic on paper. 26"H x 20"W.
Man with a Dagger.

Man with a Daggar, 1987. Acrylic on paper, 40”H x 26”W. Exhibited at Touchstone Gallery Figure As Image, Figure As Symbol.
Initiation.

Initiation, 1987. Acrylic on paper. 40"H x 26"W.
Man in Blue.

Man in Blue, 1987. Acrylic on Lenox paper 40”H x 26”W.
Soldier of Fortune, 1987. Acrylic on Lenox paper 40”H x 26”W.

Soldier of Fortune, 1987. Acrylic on Lenox paper 40”H x 26”W.