Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Polyurethane, custom vinyl decals, and acrylic on shaped acrylic panel
20 × 40 inches
Automobile gaskets are flexible components designed to seal two surfaces under pressure. They are shaped entirely by the parts that surround them and the gaps they fill. When I briefly lived in LA, I bought a '69 gold Pontiac LeMans from a friend for $100. Every car I had ever had before had just worked—but not this muscle car. I had been too seduced by the power of its subwoofer to realize its absurd price came at a cost.
Pulling into LAX to pick up a friend, my alliteratively named "Lucky LeMans" came to a mortifying halt, blocking a major entrance for an eternity. Horns blared and a traffic helicopter hovered overhead. I slowly floated out of my body, observing from above the chaos I had created. A carburetor gasket was at fault. I would end up spending a lot of my time in LA at mechanic shops and I began to collect and draw auto gaskets to pass the time waiting for repairs. They reminded me of everything and nothing, the cloverleaf of LA freeways and the scenery of my breakdowns.
I moved back to New York and for many years I worked at the center of other people's practices, holding things together under intense pressure, contorting myself into whatever shape the situation required—stretching or contracting to keep things from collapsing or exploding. A gasket doesn't have a shape of its own; it takes the form of what surrounds it. That felt familiar.
When I finally pinned a gasket to my studio wall, I immediately noticed its doppelgänger hovering below. I recognized that shadow self, dissociated and floating at a remove, a ghost of its own body. This series enlarges each gasket, isolates it, and gives it a shadow: a form that floats above its own double, hovering between object and image. I've come to think of these pieces as portraits of invisibility, disguised as hardware.