"Mergers: 10 Paintings/20 Portraits" 24" X 24"per panel  oil/paper/on panel  2006

Orlan and Phyllis

Hillary and Barak

Oprah and Toni

John and Bill

Michael and Michael

Dick and George

Andy and Jeff

Pablo and Jackson

Teresa and Diana

"Adolf and Vincent"

These paintings began as a series of portraits. I was thinking about singular well-known individuals, when it occurred to me that merging two relational individuals into one portrait would be an interesting challenge. I felt that a smooth clean photo shop merger would be too expected, so I decided to abut half faces side by side, not necessarily aligned, with a slight blend, merge effect. I wanted viewers to realize immediately that these halves were not of the same person, but through an assimilation of the physical, psychological, emotional and intellectual aspects of the individuals, a fusing would occur.