created in memory of John Markowitz
John Markowitz was one of my mentors early in my career and education. his use of masking tape to acknowledge the presence of a frame and what we choose to create within it has always haunted me. it was a subtle and intimate part of his work, a detail you notice after looking at something for a long time. I reference one of my favourite works of fiction as well, something that was always encouraged by John, to engage deeply in all kind of arts and use it to electrify our practice
i exaggerate this note here and play with cutting the tape not only around the perimeter, I push the tape inward and I cut the tape horizontally as though to fall inside of the frame. thinking that there are multiple layers of existence and layers of knowing and imaginings of what we don’t know.
the title is based on a character, Nakata, from Haruki Murakami’s, Kafka on the Shore. Nakata is a man who can mysteriously speak to cats. in this story he is a force in the world who helps with transitions and is the bridge between physical and spiritual worlds. I write in an unknowable braille-like formation of points, tracker of lost cats, to connect the point of it all.
shown in The Poetics of Painting: A Celebration of the Lineage and Legacy of John Markowitz from March 6, 2026, to August 9, 2026 at the Pensacola Museum of Art
tracker of lost cats (2026)
graphite, masking tape, oil on canvas
i’ve changed the name of this piece often. typically, people would just put untitled if they weren’t sure of what to call something or for any other reason. but i’m against not titling work, i feel like i would be disowning or ignoring it in some way if i don’t say what it is, or how it makes me feel.
i created this work for my brother and his partner/wife. he proposed near to where this image lives.
our family friend had told me once how she left a relationship that made her feel as though her ocean was draining, and she could see that she would eventually become a puddle if she stayed. and she choose to keep her ocean. and i think about this now looking at the painting, so the name of this will now be I am an ocean, said the sky.
I am an ocean, said the sky (2025)
oil on canvas
