Composition No.1: Dirty Money

Several decades ago, most of my work was about games.  In those days I painted a lot more.  Not only did I make images of chess pieces but also, I created paintings with themes based on Monopoly, Risk, and even one about a game from the ancient world that doesn’t exist anymore.  Eventually I stopped doing this because, while I rationalized the work as being about play, I came to realize that a lot of it was really about games.  With the exception of a few interactive images the work was not all that playful.  At that point, I took a sharp turn towards trying to make images that are playful, and sometimes even a little humorous, among other things.

While doing some research for an image a few weeks ago, I noticed that there are a number of web sites that provide information and templates on how to create your own design for a Monopoly game. This reminded me of a painting I once made of a chess board upon which you could actually play chess…complete with little chess pieces that could be moved around the painting.  In that spirit, I decided to make my own monopoly board and I have titled it, “Composition No.1: Dirty Money.”  

​This image is like the Monopoly game board in that there is a lot of interesting stuff within the boarder of the piece, including: coins, gloves, soapy water, and paper.  On the other hand, the inside is a massive composite image of an arial view of a dirty sink-scape populated by a township of monopoly houses. In this way I hope to confuse the viewer as to which part of the image is more important…the inside or the outside. Of course, this goes with some of the things I have already mentioned about binaries as well as my recent interest in houses and doors.  This image ties together a variety of subjects such as: rubber gloves, borders, games, water, coins, dirt, and even my earlier preoccupation with making interactive and playable art. This all seemed monumental so, with a polite nod to Wassily Kandinsky, I decided to include the word “Composition” in the title…just as he did for his monumental pieces.  Or, maybe it just struck me a funny to do so.