Artist Statement
My work is usually created with intention; rarely does the process I employ in making art in turn become the art itself. In July 2011, I was approached by a Toronto legal firm to paint a body of work for their office. I started recording the information I’d need, including measurements of walls, furnishings, and surrounding environs. I developed scale drawings of each wall, and I drew a floor plan to illustrate tricky details like the seasonal patterns of natural light sources. Then, tasked with developing an itemized price list, I hit a roadblock.

I’d always made art first and written price tags last, but I now wondered, “What do I say if I present my price list and someone asks how I arrived at these numbers?” How to determine the value of a body of work not yet created — especially through the lens of a legal firm’s budget considerations — led me on a wild and obsessive adventure in evaluating, measuring, and trying to quantify the “value” of art.

What started as research and development became an act of exploration that took on a creative life of its own, and SHOW YOUR WORK is the culmination of my off-road foray into the world of providing evidence of value to a team of lawyers.

Read the rationale for Burden of Proof.