Working in Pairs: The Power of Theme & Variation

I tend to work on more than one piece at a time. Partly it’s just practical—but it also ends up pushing the work in a really interesting way.

When I have two pieces going, they start to influence each other. I’ll try something in one, then respond to it in the other. Colors shift, marks evolve, and the idea gets stretched instead of locked in too early.

These two started like that—just side by side, figuring themselves out.

At the time, I didn’t know they would become part of what I now think of as The Few, a body of work about wealth and imbalance. But looking back, the core ideas were already there. A simple palette. Large areas of color. Marks that feel intentional but a little open-ended.

There’s a quietness to them, but also some tension underneath.

Working this way doesn’t just make things more efficient—it gives the idea more room to develop. And usually, the work ends up going somewhere I wouldn’t have gotten to if I’d only made one piece.

Final reveal of this new series The Few in a near future post.