Disintegrating American Systems

"The idea behind this body of work...was to satirize the American middle-class, a class structure which I felt was disintegrating under the pressure exerted upon it by the inequalities of corporate capitalism. In this series I first painted a realistic portrait of a typical middle-class American. Then I created a second painted image for that portrait of the figure disintegrating. The goal was to create a believable, realistic distorted portrait that resembled the person in the first portrait. For me, the disintegrating image represented the inner person living a life of 'quiet desperation.' The realistic portrait represented the outer person."