Big Boy Birthday Joy, 2025

A birthday cake emerges from the center...textured, dripping, and partially buried. The orange forms flanking it are hard to make out. Are they gifts? Construction signs? I applied plaster to the cake’s surface so it would sit above the canvas, insisting on its own presence while everything else pushes back. Not everything that calls itself a celebration is one.

Acrylic, charcoal, plaster, and ink on canvas

48 x 48 inches