With this body of acrylic paintings I had been interested in exploring the potential of the plasticity and transparency of the medium. The resulting images, made with copious acrylic gel, are formal explorations whose compositions are primarily affected by intuition and chance. Rather then use paintbrushes to create painterly illusion, I employ more honest methods of paint application, methods that reveal their self at every moment. I spread thick, pigmented gel onto the canvas using a pallet knife or other utensil, echoing the motion one uses to apply icing to a cake. After a layer of gel has dried I apply another coat, building up the surface with multiple opaque and translucent layers. Once the surface is built up to my satisfaction I use a utility knife to cut into the painting, releasing small buttons of paint that leave dimples in the surface. These positive pieces and negative spaces expose the underlying layers of paint that I had earlier applied. In some cases I carve all the way through the canvas, creating physical holes in the paintings. Often the extracted buttons of paint are turned over and reapplied onto other paintings, meaning that future paintings are literally born of previous ones. Other methods I use to build up the surface of the paintings include dripping and pouring acrylic liquid polymer onto the surface. In some cases I use a spoon to drop golfball- sized dollops of gel onto the works, allowing the globs to dry in the shape that they fell onto the canvas. During the production of these works I have been accused of “pleasure painting” as if it were a shameful and undesirable activity to be engaged in. This critical term I took as fodder, which fueled the gleeful creation of more work.