Thinking about your work and researching you a bit, I see the artists that are often cited as connecting to your practice include Eva Hesse, Robert Gober, and even late Philip Guston. But to me, when I look at your work, the artist that comes to mind most of all is Meret Oppenheim—her references to humble objects coupled with her sense of humor and a strange sense of eroticism and touch. Does this resonate at all or am I way off?

The Meret Oppenheim connection is quite interesting. A friend recently characterized my work as “contemporary surrealism” and at first I was discomfited—having a lot of reservations about that historical movement. But, truth to tell, the juxtaposition of paradoxical images is certainly key for me. (It took me a long time to accept the term “gothic” and “morbid” also, but now I’m fine with all that). Anyway, your suggestion has made me think and re-visit Oppenheim’s work. All that you mention—the humble objects, the humor, the eroticism and sense of touch—are crucial. And one of the earliest encountered icons of modern art—the fur teacup—is so much a part of my aesthetic landscape that it has been easy to take it for granted, to overlook it. Then there is the X-ray of Meret’s head with the wonderful earring. Wish I could have done that! The gloves with wooden fingers, the tied-up high heels . . . Also, a certain fascination with mortality.

One artist who was a big influence on me but never gets mentioned is Ree Morton, especially the first half of her work. I remember as a student walking into her installation at the ICA in Philadelphia, Sister Perpetua’s Lie, and thinking, “Wow! If art can be this mysterious, intellectual as well as materially primitive, sculptural, then I do indeed want to be an artist.” Interestingly, the title refers to a passage in a Raymond Roussel novel which happened to be a favorite of the Surrealists and was itself an impenetrable work of surrealist fiction.

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