In Passing was an exhibition of one painting in three parts. Each individual canvas should be considered 1/3rd of the whole (or 1/6th, since the exhibitions largest image is in three 6X6ft parts). My intention behind using a performative (unified presentation) style, rather than serial or sequential, was to create an exhibition that presented itself as a picture-riddle. Instead of representing my subject matter clearly with variations on a theme, I chose to present specific symbols which either appear random, out of order, or cropped: smoke, an oversized heart, an oversized candle in a green hallway, a rat tail, a painted cave mouth, and painted landscape. Each piece in the exhibition is only a glimpse into what could be a larger invisible orchestration; but what is clearly missing above all are the actors, who have just left, or are caught leaving, the scene where an action took place.    

During the exhibition opening there was an unexpected addition to this body of work outside of the gallery. At approximately 5:30 pm, when the exhibition opening began, a fire began at a construction site in Mission Bay down the street from CCA. The flames engulfed the building under construction, producing an enormous plume of gray smoke that could be seen across the Bay Area. Luckily, no one was injured, because the site was empty. The fire department managed to put out the blaze at approximately 7:30 pm, when the exhibition opening closed. It was reported on the news later that the fire department determined that welding equipment which had been left on after the workers ended their shift started the fire. This whole event did not go unnoticed. Visitors to the gallery saw the visible similarity between the smoke in my paintings and the smoke billowing from the nearby construction site. They took pictures and stood next to my paintings with pictures in hand to show off the comparison. I was jokingly accused of starting the fire. I was also, less jokingly, accused of using sympathetic black magic. Neither of these were the case, but I learned a valuable lesson about meaning in art: artists do not have complete control over the meaning of their work. Contingency, accident, is a powerful force.