statement
I’ll talk about my work by telling a story.
I went to the Kristin Baker opening at the little Deitch on Greene Street in 2003. In the main gallery, on the wall directly opposite the entrance, was her painting “Big Bang Vroom.” She’d used as her reference for the painting a "Sports Illustrated" photo of Stan Fox’s crash at the start of the 1995 Indianapolis 500. I knew the photo and the crash well. I was actually at the track that day, though I was a mile away in turn 3 and out of sight from where the crash occurred between turns 1 and 2. Even from that distance and out of view of the actual crash, you knew that something extraordinarily dramatic had happened by the crowd reaction. Fox’s car flipped into the fence and broke in half. His lower torso, hips and legs flapped crazily free while he was strapped onto the back of the car as it flew through the air in front of the grandstand. It was an incredibly compelling event of a figure in peril, a living Laocoön on a sunny midday Sunday. Baker’s painting omitted the figure, instead focusing on blobs, pools and schmears of industrial paint and a “Big Bang Vroom” way of depicting racing.
My work and concerns are the polar opposite of Baker’s removal of the figure from this image. As Henry Miller wrote, “The Angel is my Watermark.” No matter how chaotic things may get, the angel — the figure — is always the most important element of my work, even if that figure is the viewer.
Kirstin Baker's "Big Bang Vroom" 2003
Stan Fox's 1995 crash at Indianapolis as it appeared in "Sports Illustrated"
