2007, rabbit, graphite on found paper, 68″x78″
I worked on ‘rabbit’ for about nine months, starting in January of 2007 and finishing this December.
‘rabbit’ was a constant work in progress, accompanying me in the studio for all but three months of the year, when I was at residencies or on a cross-country roadtrip. I have been working with imagery of rabbits for a few years now, as I’m not only interested in their metaphorical potential for sexuality but also because the Norwegian side of my family is nicknamed “the rabbit clan”.
‘rabbit’ is a really important transition piece for me, bridging the small and intimate drawings I had previously been doing, with the larger pieces I am doing now. With the series, ‘maladies of memory’, I was working with extremely pristine, large expanses of white paper with tiny renderings of meticulously drawn imagery. Tiring of the control I was exerting over the cleanliness of the paper and the comfortable phenomenolgical relationship of the viewer with the image, I decided to work on a found piece of paper with a larger than life rabbit. I wanted to see how the viewer’s experience with the animal would change along with an exponential change in scale.
‘rabbit’ will be shown at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts in January, as part of the Fine Arts Work Center Invitational show.
