Technique & medium: Collage on paper made from vintage magazines adhered to heavy watercolor paper.

How did you get involved with this exhibition?
In 2008-09 I was the Visiting Lecturer in Painting at Chiang Mai University for one year. I taught all levels of painting as part of the regular curriculum for Thai students. In 2010 I returned to Thailand to exhibit my work in Bangkok. Brian Curtin, the curator for this exhibition, came to that show, and then he invited me to participate in the show at NoSpace.

Why do you choose to use collages?
I often make large-scale, highly realistic oil paintings, so the collages are a way for me to process fresh ideas. I can work more quickly, and add images from different sources. The collages help me develop my paintings, but they are also finished pieces on their own.

What’s the story behind this piece?
This body of work is a sincere ode to longing and the beauty of men’s bodies, but it also contains small jokes, ideas about history, references to our relationship to photography, and some formal and painterly ideas about the physical and sensual quality of the pieces themselves. The project is about men’s bodies seen through a woman’s eyes—the woman’s gaze, the body as landscape with hills and valleys to roam. The collages are made from 1970’s Playgirl magazines combined with American landscape photographs, also taken from vintage magazines.

How does fit in with the exhibition?
Images of naked men are more often meant for men than they are for women. Playgirl, the magazine that these images are from, was only truly targeted at women during its first few years. During those years (mid-1970’s) it contained articles about women’s health, fashion, and relationships, in addition to the explicit photographs. These magazines, intended for women, were repurposed over time for the gay male gaze, at first covertly and then blatantly. My work has similarly been repurposed for this exhibition; its meaning can change depending on the context and viewer. This change questions issues of authorship, the role of the model vs. the artist, and the meaning of the identity of the viewer of a work of art, all themes that the exhibition addresses.

Keeping eye on artist Rene Smith at her exhibition Figure with Gray Tree