Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
2022
8 × 10 in. Shadow Box
Marker on Paper, Cut from Original Journal
Original / 1 of 1
Before Nothing Left to Hide became a finished painting, it was this.
This is the original drawing from my 2022 doodle journal: a dead bird standing with its wings spread, its eyes crossed out, and its entire body opened up so everything normally hidden inside is suddenly visible.
At the time, I wasn't creating a collection.
I wasn't thinking about an artist statement, symbolism, a website, or whether anybody would ever see it. I was doodling in a journal and drawing whatever strange image happened to exist in my head.
Years later, I came back to this bird.
That's something I've started discovering as I look through my older work. Apparently, some of the ideas I'm painting now have been living in my head much longer than I realized.
The image itself is about exposure.
When we're alive, so much of us is hidden. People see whatever version of ourselves we allow them to see. They see our face, our clothes, our personality, our jokes, our confidence. They don't necessarily see everything happening underneath.
This bird doesn't have that option anymore.
Its outside has been opened and everything inside is exposed.
There is literally nothing left to hide.
There's also something funny to me about how casually the bird is standing there. It's completely dead, completely opened up, and still posed almost like it's presenting itself.
Well, here I am.
That combination of something disturbing with something slightly ridiculous is still a huge part of the way I create today.
And that's why I didn't want to redraw this original or clean it up before displaying it.
The uneven marker lines belong here. The original journal paper belongs here. Even the fact that I once considered this nothing more than a doodle belongs here.
Because now I can put this next to the later Nothing Left to Hide and see something I couldn't have known in 2022:
I was already becoming the artist I am now. I just didn't know it yet.
2022
8 × 10 in. Shadow Box
Marker on Paper, Cut from Original Journal
Original / 1 of 1
Before Nothing Left to Hide became a finished painting, it was this.
This is the original drawing from my 2022 doodle journal: a dead bird standing with its wings spread, its eyes crossed out, and its entire body opened up so everything normally hidden inside is suddenly visible.
At the time, I wasn't creating a collection.
I wasn't thinking about an artist statement, symbolism, a website, or whether anybody would ever see it. I was doodling in a journal and drawing whatever strange image happened to exist in my head.
Years later, I came back to this bird.
That's something I've started discovering as I look through my older work. Apparently, some of the ideas I'm painting now have been living in my head much longer than I realized.
The image itself is about exposure.
When we're alive, so much of us is hidden. People see whatever version of ourselves we allow them to see. They see our face, our clothes, our personality, our jokes, our confidence. They don't necessarily see everything happening underneath.
This bird doesn't have that option anymore.
Its outside has been opened and everything inside is exposed.
There is literally nothing left to hide.
There's also something funny to me about how casually the bird is standing there. It's completely dead, completely opened up, and still posed almost like it's presenting itself.
Well, here I am.
That combination of something disturbing with something slightly ridiculous is still a huge part of the way I create today.
And that's why I didn't want to redraw this original or clean it up before displaying it.
The uneven marker lines belong here. The original journal paper belongs here. Even the fact that I once considered this nothing more than a doodle belongs here.
Because now I can put this next to the later Nothing Left to Hide and see something I couldn't have known in 2022:
I was already becoming the artist I am now. I just didn't know it yet.