Spray Paint on 1/2 inch plywood
48 x 24 inches
2014-2016
100% spray paint, using 19 hand-cut stencils from original drawings.
This is a painting of houses isolated onto sea stacks and separated by turbulent ocean. As the shoreline of Oregon erodes over millions of years it leaves “seastacks” behind.
I took this photo of sea stacks at low tide at the base of the cliff at Ecola Park, Oregon (summer 2025).
In had two ideas in mind as I made this painting: climate change and “stranger neighbors”.
The placement of the houses symbolizes how so many of us don’t really get to know our next door neighbors. We might live and sleep less than 30 feet away from other people for decades and know nearly nothing about them.
In relation to climate change, what will it look like, in the coming years, when the rising sea begins to erode the bedrock where current shoreline neighborhoods exist?
Paintings produced using stencils and spray paint usually have an unavoidable flatness to them. I took lots of photos around Depoe Bay, Yaquina Head, and Ecola Park to try to understand how to simplify and effectively stylize the turbulence of the ocean surface between rocky outcrops.
The detail of the cat in the window hints at the people that inhabit this house.
For a deeper explanation of the process of making this particular painting, click on “Spray Paint and Stencils: the Process” on the top of the main page.
Or click here: The Stenciling Process