Before the Noise
️ Before the Noise
Acrylic on Canvas, 16x20, 2024
Part of the Voices in Protest series
A quiet moment before history makes a sound.
Set in a 1950s gay bar, Before the Noise captures the tension and coded communication of a time when being yourself meant risking arrest — or worse. The figures avoid eye contact, communicate through mirrors, and stare into drinks, doing their best to remain invisible. No one looks happy. It’s quiet, dim, and guarded. It was survival.
This work stands in contrast to Pay This Some Mind!, which draws from protest imagery full of sound, color, and community. Together, these works form a spectrum — the silence before, and the roar after.
️ See the rest of the Voices in Protest series in this album, including Words Woven Walking Waukegan, which transforms audience interaction into a unified visual chorus.
Before the Noise
️ Before the Noise
Acrylic on Canvas, 16x20, 2024
Part of the Voices in Protest series
A quiet moment before history makes a sound.
Set in a 1950s gay bar, Before the Noise captures the tension and coded communication of a time when being yourself meant risking arrest — or worse. The figures avoid eye contact, communicate through mirrors, and stare into drinks, doing their best to remain invisible. No one looks happy. It’s quiet, dim, and guarded. It was survival.
This work stands in contrast to Pay This Some Mind!, which draws from protest imagery full of sound, color, and community. Together, these works form a spectrum — the silence before, and the roar after.
️ See the rest of the Voices in Protest series in this album, including Words Woven Walking Waukegan, which transforms audience interaction into a unified visual chorus.