Inspired by my travels through Italy, I spent significant time in Milan, where I was deeply influenced by the beauty of the architecture, monuments, and devotional art that seemed to live on every corner. Years later, I found myself drawn to a roadside monument and memorial shop — the kind that sells religious statues for cemeteries and gardens — and I took a photograph. Something about it felt both ordinary and sacred at the same time.
I was raised Catholic and spent much of my youth in church and Catholic school. The imagery, rituals, and visual language of religion have always stayed with me. That influence continues to surface in my work — sometimes subtly, sometimes directly — shaping the ideas and symbols I’m drawn to.
This particular piece was created in 2005 for a show in Brooklyn at a gallery I was part of at the time. The work has since been lost or discarded — though I sometimes like to imagine that someone found it and gave it a new home. That, perhaps, is another story.
This is the only photo I have of the finished work prior to installation.
highly contrasted image for transfer to doors
Postcard from the Gallery opening.