Target Works
About fifteen years ago I started working with paper gun targets as a vehicle to explore figurative abstraction and societal issues relating to violence, consumerism, gender and predator-prey relationships. My target paintings contain religious iconography and images of soldiers, which mingle with the profane. Flowers, books, and small collages of Classical Greek sculpture are collaged with scores for hitting vital organs. The ambiguity of these juxtapositions is intentional, for violence can be seductive, especially when tied to a righteous cause.
A more specifically gendered body of target paintings is now emerging, inspired by commercially produced ‘hostage targets’ depicting a male figure with a gun to a female’s head. This series is titled
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.