Artist-In-Residence studio at Greenwich House Pottery
Royal Flush
I have always been drawn to the beautiful, the crafted, the decorative. Historical research on crowns from several cultures augmented my involvement with decorative, culturally inspired patterns that inform my painting.
Royal Flush explores the opulence and maleficence of crowns: an exquisite decorative arts object adorned with often nefarious political and/or religious patterning. Crowns conjure fairy tales but also omnipotent, autocratic power. Created by anonymous artisans to canonize dynasties, crowns are testaments to conquest, cultural migration and assimilation.
This dichotomy is underscored by the flora and fauna designs on crowns: they reference either local motifs from peacefully aligned country or exotic designs from conquered empires. Lyrical terms such as fleur de lys or arabesque mask the authority embedded in crowns.
Crowns also exploit a conquered country’s mineral wealth: the Koh-i-noor diamond in the UK Crown Jewels, or the plundered Andean gold and emeralds that decorate Spanish crowns.
As one of the first invited artists in the new Greenwich House Pottery Residency for non-ceramic artists, I chose to work with a black porcelain clay body for its own palimpsest of regal symbolism. To move beyond literal renditions of opulent jewels and precious metals, and to underscore their nefarious narratives, the crowns are all black and rendered on a larger-than-life scale.
All crowns 2016-2020
