“...and five, six, seven, eight.”

Anticipating action upon hearing the rising count of “…and five, six seven, eight.” This prompt of movement carries with it pop cultural content, encapsulating the agony and ecstasy of individual and group effort and artistic expression and all that jazz. Presenting figures of utility as performative narration in the title sets the stage for the lighted mirrors and archetypal doors of the show that are symbolic beyond their practical use and have a fictionalized prop-like quality. They act as stand-ins for public life and cultural practices, and prompt a reckoning of self through common trope cues – doors and mirrors being potent and enduring metaphors in art, film, theater, and literature.

Like the showbiz title of the show, “What is behind door number _?” (an old game show refrain of chance fortunes), could act as a subtitle for the series of doors in the show. Each of the three doors is made of hanging threads (scrim- like and sized to the mind and not the body) and is presented and spaced so the viewer makes a viewing choice within the gallery, to physically step forward one at a time. One painting is in the composition of a swinging bistro kitchen door, complete with a silver kick plate and a bright portal window (a legible arrangement of floating abstract shapes) conjuring an illuminated space beyond the wall while also summoning feelings of dining out nostalgia. The other two doors are patterned on recognizable vernacular types – a generic wooden panel door, and a front entry with genteel colonial American styling (often found in down market properties). To some measure, they are meant to act as shorthand summarizing the moment of their making, when public life is mostly deferred and we are limited to domestic spaces, and America’s future and vision of itself are uncertain.