Images gleaned from newspapers and other popular sources, snapshots from family albums provide points of departure and sources for these works. I incorporate Polaroids, film stills from my documentary films, exploratory drawings, as well as direct painting and drawing. The relationship between painting and photography, including the role of painting as a form of contemporary cultural expression, is fundamental to my work.

I use various “technologies” or media in order to transform the images and to challenge the received belief that photography records a more faithful representation of the world than painting. Images shift between representation and abstraction, creating a dialogue between the camera, printmaking, drawing and painting.

Recent works depict crowds of people seen from a distance and in silhouette. These drawings reveal seemingly random groupings of people in which series of private gestures and encounters are juxtaposed with the disciplined maneuvers of invading troops. Abstract configurations of individuals in crowds are familiar to urban dwellers, and we are reminded that these patterns reflect our own observation of people in the public square. The work evokes the question of who is the spectator and whether the motivation for watching is benign or malevolent. I want the images to convey humanity without sentimentality, to depict the menace—the shadow, as well as the beauty — of an arrested moment caught in time.