Hands as Feet

2025

Oil on canvas

137.16 × 182.88 cm (54 × 72 inches)

‘Hands as Feet’ is a subconscious exercise in studying disorder. It depicts a bureaucratic workforce observing a mixture of animalistic forms. The painting was executed slowly over a period of several months, with broad brushstrokes to maintain a gestural quality. What are these bureaucratic workers doing observing these animals? It is a question I do not know the answer to. The longer this canvas sat in my studio, the deeper the subconscious imagery sank into my psyche. Sometimes, I need to stare at one canvas in progress for a number of months to understand how the imagery can function. The use of animals, such as dancing apes and pillow fighting sheep, came from a mysterious sense of experimentation. In previous paintings, I used humanized apes to critique the perceived connections that humans often have with them. I researched ape actors used in media and entertainment and the history of abuse that was often to required to make them perform. In this image, these apes are performing. They are making marks on a paper ground, engaging in a form of production, labor, and disarray. Even though they are marching in a circle, the shape crosses into disorder. The praying guns motif has been present before in smaller works and planned sketches. I use it as a dichotomy between peace and violence. The praying hands suggest a sense of complete devotion. Both ‘Hands as Feet’ and ‘Splitting for the Price of Eggs’ have a central motif of a pale couple kissing in the upper center of the composition. It was my way of depicting a sense of possible joy or hope among the chaos. I do have an underlying optimism for the human spirit in all my work. I feel proud for attempting to pack so much gestural violence, peace, faith, observation, and love into one single composition.