Image of a print titled Vanitas 6 by Andrew Cornell Robinson. The composition includes a pattern of half tone dots in yellow and black rendering a bilateral composition split in half vertically, on the left is a portrait of the artist obscured by a bright neon orange paper that is collaged over the face using a printing technique called Chine-collé. The shape of this paper is in a silhouette of multiple fig leaves. On the right side of the composition is a half tone image of a human skull and flowers, aka a Vanitas. Silkscreen with Chine-collé, on cotton rag paper 24 x 36 inches 2022 — Vanitas 6 (Fig Leaves), silkscreen on paper, with chine collé, 2022

Vanitas 6 (Fig Leaves), silkscreen on paper, with chine collé, 2022

Vanitas 9, silkscreen on paper, with chine collé, 2022

Vanitas 7, silkscreen on paper, with chine collé, 2022

Vanitas 8 (Frankenstein Self Portrait), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, 2022

Vanitas 21, silkscreen on cotton rag paper, 2022

Vanitas 5, silkscreen on paper, and acetate, 2022

Vanitas 28, silkscreen, collage on cotton rag paper, 2022

Vanitas 29, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 31, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 32, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 34, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 38, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 39, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 30, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 35, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 36, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 37, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 40, silkscreen on paper and colored paper, with monoprint oil based ink, 2022

Vanitas 11 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, 2022

Vanitas 12 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with metallic foil paper, 2022

Vanitas 13 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 14 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with metallic foil paper, 2022

Vanitas 15 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 17 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 19 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 21 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 10 (Tom Tom), silkscreen on cotton rag paper, with colored paper, 2022

Vanitas 16 (Ted Smoking), silkscreen on metallic foil paper, 2022

Vanitas 20, silkscreen on cotton rag paper, 2022

Vanitas

This project began as an excavation and appropriation of police surveillance footage filmed during a 1960s sting operation to arrest gay men during the summer of 1962 in Mansfield, Ohio. The police filmed men cruising in a public restroom. A cameraman hid in a closet and watched the clandestine activities through a two-way mirror. The film is a perfect example of Foucault’s panopticon, in which behavior is enforced through the threat of surveillance. These films served as evidence of their desires, and led to over thirty convictions and prison. Mining stills from these films, as well as my own photographs, this series of abstracted “portraits” juxtaposed with still life Vanitas; the symbolic representation of the futility of worldly pleasures evolved into an elaborate body of monoprints and limited edition prints that employ layering, obfuscation, and contrasting juxtapositions.

1. Jones, William E. Tearoom, 2nd Cannons Publications, 2008.
2. Sicinski, Michael. Tearoom, Academic Hack, 2007.