Playing with Fire

Playing with Fire Series

Playing with Fire examines how access to knowledge is shaped, limited, and controlled. Using trompe l’oeil painting, I depict stacks of books seen from above, tightly cropped so that titles, edges, and bands of color are only partially visible. This compressed viewpoint reflects the ways information is often encountered today—fragmented, edited, and incomplete.

Each work focuses on books that have been challenged or banned in the United States, frequently for addressing themes such as race, gender identity, sexuality, or belief systems that challenge dominant narratives. By abstracting these texts into planes of color and partial language, the paintings explore how complex ideas are flattened or obscured when they are deemed controversial or unacceptable. The illusion of realism draws viewers in, while the withheld information reinforces the tension between visibility and restriction.

Although primarily a painter, the strategies used in this series extend beyond the canvas. Two sculptural works, Balancing Act and Pyre, operate as quiet conceptual counterparts to the paintings, translating the same concerns into physical form. Across media, cropping, compression, and material restraint function as deliberate devices, reinforcing the experience of limitation. Influenced by the color relationships of Josef Albers, the spatial dynamics of Hans Hofmann, and the illusionistic precision of William Harnett, the work moves between naturalism and abstraction.

Playing with Fire considers the cultural consequences of restricting access to ideas, inviting viewers to reflect on what is lost when knowledge is filtered, constrained, or removed from public discourse.