Artist Statement

The title and gem-encrusted visuals of Imitation of Imitation of Life nod to the credit sequence of Douglas Sirk’s classic 1959 melodrama Imitation of Life. 
On their surface, the visuals seem to celebrate the sheer splendor of coveted, near-impossibly expensive jewelry. But the bedrock beneath the hundreds of carefully hand-cut and spontaneously strewn paper jewels is formed by photocopied quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. This free-floating, endlessly variable collage, with an ever-expanding number of pieces, touches upon — among other things — glamour, artifice, materialism, the unjust ruthlessness of capitalism, and the slow death of printed matter. An example of loose-leaf “floor art,” its ingredients can be rearranged and repurposed in the future.