Microarray
2010
Acrylic on styrofoam cup
14' 10” x 9' 3” x 4.75"
(Microarray 2.0, a reconfigured iteration of this installation, was exhibited in 2015 at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center.)
Microarray occupies a transitional space: between two and three dimensions, between painting and sculpture, and between the manufactured and the organic.
1,440 Styrofoam cups form the foundation of the installation. Acrylic paint has been poured onto the bases of the cups, which are arranged in a pattern of nine repeating grids. Bubbles, cracks and clumps of pigment, as well as variations in sheen and texture, individualize each unit within the tightly controlled structure. When viewed in totality, the circles of poured paint appear to hover over the floor, thereby projecting the reductive painting into space and inserting the work into the conversation about the enduring influence of modernism in visual art.
Microarray builds on my previous installations of poured paint circles arranged in grids that envelop entire walls and rooms. In the latest project—titled after the colorful dot-and-grid images generated by instruments used in molecular biology to simultaneously sequence the expression of thousands of genes—my attention turns to the floor. The intent, nevertheless, remains the same: to celebrate color, contour and the pleasure of making something with one’s hands.