During Flood’s traditional training at AIB he focused on still life and figure painting, but he also was drawn to painting interiors and capturing pictorial space. Toward the end of his college experience, (Flood earned a B.F.A. in Fine Arts from the Art Institute), he began to turn his attention to painting cityscapes – perhaps influenced by his father’s life work in the construction business. Interestingly, Flood’s approach to painting urban structures mimics their construction process, and the paintings reveal the process – from structure/foundation to completed forms.

Flood spends 4-5 days a week painting in his Abington, Massachusetts studio. His work has been included in dozens of shows, and at prestigious venues such as the deCordova Museum, the Duxbury Art Complex Museum and the Copley Society.  He was juried into the Copley Society as a Member in 2011, and has appeared in a number of publications including the Boston Globe, Artscope Magazine, and The Boston Courant.  Flood continues to focus on painting cityscapes.

I live in company with a body, a silent companion, exacting and eternal.

- Eugene Delacroix

A mannequin, also known as a dummy or dress form, is an articulated doll used by artists, tailors and dressmakers to display or fit clothing. The word mannequin comes from the French language and means “an artist’s jointed model.”

Mannequins have always attracted me, most likely due to my obsession and background working in fashion coupled with my fascination with stylized representations of people. Having devoted a third of my life to the fashion industry, I spent much time surrounded by and utilizing the fashion dress form. For me the image started as a sort of self-portrait, homage to my past, and now has become the guiding symbol into my exploration as an artist. Upon further investigation, this familiar and perhaps even nostalgic object has taken on new meaning. I started to look past the basic image and associations projected onto these forms and then began to consider their social and psychological impact on social consciousness.

The mannequin may be considered the quintessential modern symbol of consumerism, femininity and artifice. It evokes the remaking of the female body as a product and represents a modernized form of femininity, exemplified by consumerism. It inhabits modern spaces of consumption, such as the mall and boutiques. And while the mannequin helped validate women’s presence in public spaces as active consumers and spectators, it also made them a part of the public spectacle.

While unable to escape the psychological and social associations of these forms, I chose to direct my focus on the surface of these objects. Using oil paint to describe them as though they were made of flesh, I attempt to capture the subtle variations and imperfections of their surface and the natural light hitting them. I relish in depicting every tear, stain and imperfection of the outer most layer, like a damaged skin.

Ultimately, I rather prefer to leave the translation and interpretation up to the viewer, while I concentrate on bringing an image to life in a way that manages to stand on its own and tell its unique story.