C-Collage, 36" x 48", mixed media on panel, 1985. Museum collection.

C--Collage is similar to the New York Self-Portrait painting in terms of approach because here I laid out and mounted the contents of my briefcase after a trip afar and executed a painting over that arrangement. C--Collage fetishizes the materials of the collage more thoroughly than the over-painted treatment the fetishized objects received in the self-portrait. In certain ways, this is a more intimate self-portrait but without the "self" image holding court over the elements of the collage. The "automatic" associative nature of the items and their arrangement on the picture plane create a linear narrative in concert with their nature as "documents" providing information and instruction regarding human activity. There is a type-written poem in a plastic sleeve attached to the bottom of the panel. It's a poem by Robert Clinton that I came across in Harvard Magazine a few months before I made this painting. The poem, which is an extraordinary visualization of an interpersonal relationship, had a powerful effect on me. You may read the text in full by clicking here.

My appropriation of the Venn diagram which visually models Cartesian geometric principles makes its initial appearance here and will be the format of many works to come during this phase of my career. The "U" (universe) is rendered in the upper-right corner of the composition just beside the flattened Molson beer can. The two Venn circles are modeled as spheres and are hovering over the collage (grid) and operate on the grid as visual symbols for participants in a relationship--the exact nature, quality, and character of their relationship is contextualized by their individual orientation (coordinates) on the grid (universe).