The Lulu Drawings

The drawings, made with brush and ink on dictionary pages between 2011 and 2015, were created for use in the production of Alban Berg's opera Lulu. The physicality of ink—black ink, ink as blood, the harsh lines and clarity of images corresponding to the ruthless world—becomes an aesthetic equivalent of the instability of desire, a central construct in the opera. Lulu is both less and more than she wants to be, and more and less than her suitors imagine her to be. As such, she is often represented in a fractured formation in the drawings; constructed on multiple sheets; created to deconstruct and to fall apart. As femme fatale, she exists in many forms and there are myriad women representing her.