My recent paintings both celebrate and challenge the myth of control. Animated and enslaved, marionettes are metaphors for this diverging theme.

Lifeless and dense marionettes hang, casting long shadows. The controller's strings cut through the soft stage-like backdrops, announcing both bondage and animation. The spaces are intimate and the interactions self-aware. Stage-lit, these marionettes perform through interactions that are at once personal and confrontational, helpless and hopeful.

Laid bare and illuminated the stage is set for this polarity of control. Solitary or accompanied the marionettes narrate the present dilemma. They are puppets, liberated by the power of storytelling.