I have always painted about the potential of objects. This is why I often say my work is most related to still life. It was only a matter of time until one of my subjects emerged in three dimensions. Gazer revisits a beloved theme from my oeuvre — a broom with a mirror. This subject first appears in my work in a 2015 painting titled The Mirror and appears again in my 2020 painting Cassiopeia, the model for this sculpture. 

Mirrors, portals, and windows recur in my work to speak about subjects such as the gaze, voyeurism, objectification, power, and agency. Mirrors and windows in western painting were historically used to objectify and malign their often-feminine subjects. This broom with the mirror symbolizes a powerful transformation — a common tool gazes at themself in an act of self-love and recognition of possibility beyond the intentions of their maker.  

With this sculpture I wanted to work in a material as enduring and historic as oil painting, thus Gazer is bronze; a storied, weighty medium able to hold a myriad of patinas. My utmost respect and gratitude go to the master craftspeople at the foundry who have spent many hours with me and are painstakingly executing each of these bronze works through the magic of metallurgy.  

Gazer invites the viewer on a journey through the art historical cannon in the timeless interplay of form and symbolism as seen from the Arts & Crafts movement to the Surrealists to new millennium imagists like myself.