The Savignyplatz Series
Savignyplatz is a train station in Berlin. When I was there, years ago, just out of art school, I was struck by the cacophony of Berlin, how its history and present are intermixed in its city streets. Buildings wear scars from world wars, blackened pockmarks from bullets that ricocheted seventy years ago … but also graffiti from today. Buskers play classical music on accordions on street corners, teenagers hustle by in their ripped jeans and sneakers. Diverse languages commingle and compete with raucous expression. The city is alive, it has a deep past. It’s kaleidoscopic, terrible, electric, wounded … but it is also beautiful.
The idea for these paintings came to me while I was standing on the platform at Savignyplatz, waiting for a train. Across from me, on the brick, was an old, hand-painted advertisement for something long-gone … it showed an elegant woman, looking over her shoulder. It was defaced with graffiti, but somehow the effect was beautiful. The two visual languages, or two moments, were speaking to each other. I felt the older painting reaching forward in time to tell me something.
I wanted to create that same effect in my paintings, and in order to do so, I had to steal images from other times and plunder my own history. I waited to work on this series for many years … and only now does it seem like the right time.
Black Cat Fireworks
This is one of the first in the Savignyplatz series, inspired by the old Black Cat Fireworks wrappers. I have memories of setting off firecrackers with my father in San Francisco. It was loud, dangerous, and felt like we were getting away with something. Even as a kid, I loved the graphic beauty of the firecracker wrappers. During Chinese New Year, the streets would be showered with the ragged red paper shrapnel from thousands of firecrackers.
2025 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Swan and Coca Cola Girl
This is inspired by a 1950’s era Coca-Cola advertisement. I had made another painting of some swans, and decided to paint this on top of it, to create the feeling of two different moments occupying the same space. I love the eerie emptiness of the woman’s perfect smile.
I find that duplicating the flat, fast vocabulary of advertising has given me a different view of painting technique, and I’ve developed a real appreciation for the unpretentious brilliance of working artists of the past.
2025 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Cats and Coca Cola
This is inspired by another 1950’s era Coca-Cola advertisement. I liked the direct, almost confrontational gaze of the woman they used as a model. She has a strength and darkness that seem a little curious in the context of an ad for soda pop, and I like to think the artist at the time enjoyed pushing that edge.
2025 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Spanish Woman and the Sacred Heart
This picture originally consisted of a large head, borrowed from a 1960’s era Coca-Cola ad, which can still be seen in the background. But it was too pat, and I decided to paint over it. I made marks that I thought suggested Hindi sign painting, and then added a figure borrowed from classical painting.
I like the idea that moments of divinity can be found nested inside the most humdrum places.
2025/2026 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Drink Coca Cola and Pep Boys
I was looking at Hindi sign painting when I made this piece. That and an old Coca-Cola ad seemed to make a good combination. I pictured this as a section of a wall, maybe on the side of a corner store, which had been plastered with notices and ads over the years. I imagined generations of children scribbling their names here, and drawing animals, monsters, and doodles that would eventually be washed away.
2025 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
April 19th
This was painted on top of one of my paintings from years prior. I had never quite been satisfied with it, and, seeing it with fresh eyes, I decided to paint over it, without fear of losing what I already had. I borrowed a figure from classical painting, and a Hindi coke logo, and elements from a Pepsi logo from the 1950’s.
I think things often become more beautiful when they are no longer perfect.
2026 Oil and enamel spray paint on canvas. 42” x 35”
Black Cat Fireworks, 2
A second iteration of the Black Cat Fireworks inspiration. This is another one that I can picture as a piece of an old brick wall, painted over many times, and weather-worn.
I have always loved cats, and this cat here has the same missing tooth that my cat Roxie has. She’s a fierce little firecracker, Roxie.
2025/2026 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Palimpsest
This painting took shape over a long time. You can see the ghost of a face near the bottom of the canvas, which was the first image to appear. It was taken from a Coca Cola advertisement from the 1950’s. The central face is my father-in-law’s mother. She was a singer and dancer, and had a beautiful, expressive face. I wanted the whole thing to feel like a wall on the side of a theater, that had been plastered and re-plastered with show posters and ads over the years.
2025/2026 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Cocolat
Here I painted what I imagined was a French advertisement for hot chocolate, that had been scribbled on by school children. Over top of it, I painted a figure inspired from a book of 19th Century photography. I imagine the figure looking on at the scribbles with patient indulgence.
2026 Oil on linen. 36” x 45”
Angel of the Rocks
2026 Oil on linen. 30” x 36”
Private collection.
Emma
Here the whole picture reads as an interplay of vignettes. I wanted the classical, narrative feel of the figure to be interrupted by marks that suggest pieces of text, but text that could be any language.
The title is an inside joke. A man claiming to be an art dealer messaged me, and tried to convince me that he was dating Emma Watson, and that she was interested in this painting. He was clearly a bit of a loon, so I politely declined to work with him. His response: “So I guess you don’t want Emma Watson as a collector?”
Emma, if you really do like this painting, I’ve named it after you!
2025 Oil on canvas. 28” x 36”
Savignyplatz
This was another of my first forays into this idea. The whole thing started with the background texture. I wanted a figure that was emerging from the surface, barely differentiated, almost haunting the picture. The inset landscape satisfied the need for something sharp, and clearly descriptive.
2024 Oil on linen. 36” x 45”
Caryatid I
2024 Oil on linen. 30” x 24”
Caryatid II
2024 Oil on linen. 30” x 24”
Horse and Power Station
This was another of my first forays into this series. I wanted to combine the feeling of Persian miniature painting with large sign painting letters, and fragmented marks and scribbles that suggest meaning, but in fact are only visual.
2025/2026 Mixed media on canvas. 40” x 60”
Decima
Decima was one of the three Fates, in Roman mythology. She was responsible for measuring a person's lifespan. Here, she is partially erased, perhaps unaware that she herself is halfway through her own measure.
I imagine this as a fresco in some half-forgotten, Roman ruin.
2024 Oil on linen. 32” x 24”
Judith and Hills Bros
2025 Mixed media on panel. 48” x 72”
Judith and Hills Bros
Here’s the painting with my cat to indicate scale!
2025/2026 Mixed media on panel. 48” x 72”