These circuit board paintings arose from my job as a computer sales consultant back in the early 1990’s; I was appalled at the computer’s speed of redundancy and was determined to extend its life. My son was born around that time and after I’d put him to bed, I would head to the art studio and paint the nightscape because that was the landscape I saw out the window. Working late into the night, I could always place myself as one of the “ignited” lights in the painting, thus creating a landscape that appealed to the subjective and objective view.
After much trial and error, I discovered that re-igniting the circuits with a soldering gun and adding wires and paint, I was able to get closer to that visceral ‘electric’ light experience in a way that traditional paint on gessoed canvas did not allow. Over time, I created traffic, lightning and other features that played with the metaphors associated with circuit boards and power.
To me, the circuit board is the perfect contemporary ‘canvas' or ‘platform’. It is such an integral part of the global village, being contained in so many of our consumer goods that we rely upon to stay ‘connected' or ‘consumed'. Its similarity of geography and architecture to urban topography, as well as its correlation to the circuitry of the mind, both serve to enhance its intrinsic metaphoric value. And while I’m an avid recycler, this work is more about a poetic re-contextualizing of object and idea, of creating delicate objects out of these obsolete, but formerly cutting-edge technologies.
