Notes on the Personal Ad Series

(2000 -2010)

In 2000, I would take breaks from working in the studio by going on walks around the neighborhood to clear my head. While looking leafing through magazines at the newsstand near my studio, I came across magazines that featured personal ads placed by couples and singles looking for sex.  Many of the ads featured photos that people had submitted of themselves.  Out of focus, shot from odd angles, too dark or too bright, they featured an extraordinary lack of inhibition. I was drawn to these images because of this very public display of very personal fetish. The images had an earnest amateur quality that I found intriguing.  I was also looking for a way back into doing figurative work after making abstract work for the previous decade.

When I now look at these images in 2025, they remind me of a world of magazine stands; a time when photos still had to be taken with cameras using film yielding uncertain results. And to buy or sell anything from cars to sex meant placing or answering an ad in a physical magazine or newspaper.

Here is a link to a self-published book of these drawings: https://www.blurb.com/b/2736852-personals