I often use gold in my work for its ability to straddle the line between opulence and fakery. It is a material freighted with importance; however, it can quickly become cheap or tacky and is often imitated to varying degrees of success. In certain pieces gold is used to elevate the lowliest of materials as a tongue in cheek jab at decorative elements. This can be seen as I painstakingly gild cardboard in double leaf 24 karat gold.

This series began after a site visit to Saint Gaudens National Park (Cornish, NH) when I was selected for an exhibition there. It is my response to the Amor Caritas (Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American, 1880–98) and also an homage to Renaissance Triptychs and the Florentine triptychs created as souvenirs for them.

I question assumed hierarchies of objects, of taste, and markers of class, bringing concepts like importance, beauty, and decorative value into direct conversation with what is perceived as unimportant, worthless, and tacky. I am captivated by perceptions and intersections of dichotomies such as high-brow/low-brow, beautiful and macabre, elegance and kitsch. 

From the series: is this enough, cardboard, 24k gold, dimensions variable