Tension (esp. sexual tension) is the catalyst behind the creation of my paintings. If libidinal resolution is not immediately forthcoming, I turn to my canvas in an attempt to build a dialectical bridge across the time/space crevice which separates the Other from myself. This phenomenological process is, at best, a diversion from the pain of an existential life. I'm not so much concerned with "knowing" the Other (the unattainable, Kantian "thing-in-itself") as I am in controlling it by giving it form. At times I succumb to its domination and am negated by it, and at other times, I'm on top, effecting a double negative. Rarely (if at all), when I paint, does an alchemical union occur between the Other and myself (I find that attaining this state of ego dissolution (the solutio) is only possible during sex, sleep and, it must be presumed, in death).

I strive to live my philosophy -- I'm in a constant state of sexual tension -- and when I'm not [living it], it reverts into art.* Painting is, therefore, one of the things I do in order to satiate the hunger that threatens to tear my life apart.

STATEMENT REGARDING CURRENT WORK:

When I made these paintings, I was inspired by the popular iconography of 1940's-1970's book jackets and movie posters, as well as vintage sideshow banners, which imageries are perfect exemplars of the neo-deconstructivists' theory that the parergon is more important than the ergon. I.e., the appearance of life, and affectation of the same, have perhaps become more important than (if not outright replacing) life itself. In this spirit, I regard these paintings as outsized book jackets (or banners) to the unwritten volumes of my life. The matching panties accompanying some of the paintings are insurance in case of "accidents", i.e., to "catch the drips" (my paintings can be temperamental).

FUN STUFF: I like inflatable objects, 2-headed calves, and dancing the hula (Tahitian and Hawaiian).

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*According to Hegel, there are three moments of Absolute Truth: art, religion and philosophy. And of these three moments, philosophy is its highest realization.

Sharon Leong, the Queen of B-Paintings