“artists don't own the meaning of their works” -Roberta Smith
“you don’t have to understand the narrative, it’s the voice that is important” -Jerome Silbergeld
“How to Lost on You” was an older painting called “How to Solve”, which was the runt of a litter of paintings from a different series. It's no longer the runt, but an older sibling, quite removed, more itself than it was. Lost on You fits pretty obviously into themes of my work: story, loss, memory, aging, time. But in Contrast to “how to Solve”, which implies some kind of puzzle with a right answer, “Lost” is wrong. The title is about being lost, in the simplest meaning, but also a personal loss, a lost bet on a relationship, because any relationship is a proposition, a bet, or an offer, that it will be forever, or good, or work, that we will be accepted, cherished, valued, and the value of the relationship is a judgment on us, and if we lose the relationship, it's a defeat, a personal defeat on our scorecard. But also the idiom Lost on You is to say someone doesn't understand something. So when we lose someone, we can get into two minds, one where we feel undervalued and defeated, and one where we see how we were simply not really seen. The composition and process fit this feeling, the rebirth of a painting overworked, forgotten, repeatedly excavated, left to settle like ruins covered with quiet snow.