Stuffed Animal Pile #1, 2020

oil on canvas
72”x 84” (183cm x 213cm)

Stuffed Animal Pile #1 depicts a large horizontal grid of over 100 individual squares rendered in some of my most beloved hues. The title of the piece, rather than describing the subject matter, is a reference to the color palette: the browns, blues, pinks, orange, yellow, greens and black were all pre-mixed with intuitive precision to mimic the colors I often use in my Stuffed Animal Piles, and virtually all of my other paintings. Framing each base color are its lighter tint and darker shade, which create thin bevels at the squares’ edges and provide a rhythmic visual pattern while also giving each square a satisfying dimensionality.

Foregoing the constraints of painting representational objects in this Square Quilt piece allowed me to focus solely on the simple joy of placing the squares on the canvas in a meditative rhythm, letting each square inform the next while also existing as a self-contained event of pure color. Instead of lining up the edges of the squares with the edges of the canvas, I chose to let the squares extend beyond the pictorial space to suggest that what we see here is but a fraction of an infinite world of pure color :)