The Sleep of Reason… and ongoing (forever) project:

The Sleep of Reason reimagines Francisco Goya’s 1799 print series Los Caprichos as large-scale neon posters.

Contemplate the absurdity of reason and the folly of enlightenment in your black light grotto: the world is turned upside down and absurdity rules. We experience, simultaneously, horror and hilarity, disgust and enthrallment, bewilderment and anxiety. Notions of social structure, cultural conventions and appropriate moral behavior are abandoned; blasphemy, forbidden actions, the sexually deviant and scatological are brought out from the shadows and embraced.

In this topsy-turvy world where boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and fantasy are blurred, we are given a new perspective. My neon screen prints are an homage to etchings that remain startlingly relevant today.

Created using hand cut rubylith stencils, the production of these prints is itself an exercise in absurdity. Near countless hours were spent cutting each and every detail. Some of Goya’s etchings are recreated verbatim while in other prints, figures are removed from their original compositions to create new arrangements.

Made using fluorescent inks, the prints evoke a sense of the psychedelic and are meant to be viewed in black light. Even in normal light settings, the glowing, abrasive color palette provides just the right visceral reaction and retinal burn.

Exhibited at Wheaton College’s Beard & Weil Galleries in 2017 and at The Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons University in 2016.