This painting is quite old, maybe fifteen years or so, but I don’t recall ever showing it to many people beyond those who have been in my studio where it hangs.
When I was formulating the composition, it initially felt like a duty to sand and scrape the mold injection lines off the chess pieces for the sake of beauty. It was the right choice to leave them alone to be imperfect symbols of manufactured and iterative instruments of war. Stamped into being and stamped out, so to speak.
