HERALDS
Heralds grows out of the material and conceptual work I began in Repurposed Glyphs. Both series look at how forms gain meaning and authority, and what happens when familiar visual languages are taken out of their original settings and used differently. In Heralds, I work with the structures of heraldry—shields, borders, emblems, and other forms traditionally used to establish identity and communicate status.
These paintings are informed by the connections between heraldic imagery, ownership, protection, wealth, and social position. I am not trying to represent heraldry directly or make paintings about its history. Instead, I use its forms as a starting point. The shield becomes a surface where different images and associations can come together. Some of these images may initially seem unrelated—a cake, for example, or another ordinary object. Their significance develops through their placement within the larger composition and through their relationship to ideas of value, possession, celebration, desire, and excess.
I am interested in how images can carry meanings that are not immediately obvious, and how those meanings change when an image is placed within a particular visual system. Heraldic imagery turns social and economic relationships into a set of signs. The paintings use that structure to consider how value is created, protected, displayed, and understood.
The paintings are not meant to illustrate these ideas. Their meaning also comes from the physical process of making them—the buildup of paint, changes and corrections, and the evidence left on the surface. The images become part of the painting rather than simply explaining something outside it. The titles extend these connections, bringing together associations that may not be apparent from the images alone.
