But I couldn't make these new pictures simply about beauty, for there is no meaning in beauty without a context. For this context I chose my experiences as a gay man and the irony of how, on the one hand, our mainstream culture relies on certain gay sensibilities to define beauty, especially through the creative arts, and on the other hand, our culture wants us to hide other aspects of our sensibilities, specifically our sexuality.

In the painting Daisy (for David), I juxtaposed the image of a enlarged daisy with the phrase "All they had to do was nothing." I originally chose these words as a commentary on the reaction of our culture and its leaders to the epidemic that has infected and killed millions of people. Individual viewers will undoubtedly bring their own experiences to these words and its accompanying image.

Daisy (for David) is dedicated to David Wojnarowicz who was a gay man I knew, an artist of incredible sensitivity and insight, and a hero of mine. He died of AIDS in November, 1992.