…..for it is the subject, the epitome of narcissistic self-engrossment, who collects and eroticises his own being, evading the amorous embrace to create a closed dialogue with himself” Jean Baudrillard, The System of Collecting.
These works continue to explore how the creation of a fictitious object can mirror a private world, that of the painter and that of the collector.
Psychologists argue that in terms of child development, for the separation from the mother to occur the child has to see her as abject, the site of conflicting desires of attraction and repulsion. In this transitional process the child will divert his/her intense attention to an object as a replacement. The word matter derives from mater meaning mother and there is a fleshy materiality of the work. Paint is used to both simulate and describe an object that is both lovingly detailed and absurd. The resulting “thing” is depicted as displayed often revered enough to imply the power-gaze of a fictitious collector. His relationship with the object perhaps a result of his own pathology of commodity fetishism.
