OBSTRUCTIONS

An obstruction impedes or prevents passage or progress. A gate, for example, is a physical form placed at a transitional space working to restrict and direct movement, offering, perhaps, a glimpse of what lies on the other side. But obstruction can also afford opportunity: When the gate is open there is access to the space beyond. When it is closed, you are thrown onto your wits to get through or around it. Paintings work in a similar fashion. Each presents a mediating surface or portal by which our gaze, attention, and imagination are focused, restricted, and expanded. The Obstruction paintings explicitly make such restriction, and possibility, their subject and method.