Art Curious Contemporary

Mickey Finn – Series

Selected works from the Mickey Finn series.

The Mickey Finn series suggests a decaying character drawn from the visual vocabulary of mass media, photographed from my own source material, and twisted into a new, devolved, darker character.

“Mickey Finn” references both the animated mouse and an historical alcoholic drink laced with an incapacitating agent, given to sailors circa the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who, believing they were being “seen” and celebrated for their dedicated and hard work, were instead incapacitated, trafficked, and enslaved. My own family went to sea for generations, from Denmark to Liverpool, through the age of sail. I did not come to this history from outside it.

This metaphor of an animated mouse, an innocuous and entertaining television character, mutating into a sinister, manipulative cult figure is central to the “Mickey Finn” series. In the works themselves, the mouse survives mostly as shape — round ears, black silhouette, oversized white eyes, the curve of a gloved hand — enough to be recognized before it is understood.

A dark ovoid ringed in cream and pale green fills the center of the frame, set against a field of salmon pink and misted mint. Black forms press in from either side: a thick vertical bar at right, a splayed shape at lower left, and a crusted patch of dark magenta spreading at upper left. Two small pale domes sit near the bottom edge, and beads of condensation run down the left third.

Mickey Finn, 2025, museum-quality lightfast ink on aluminum plate, size 61 cm x 61 cm

A black blot of a head fills a horizontal frame, carrying two large white oval eyes with dark irises. Pale clover-shaped forms flank it near the base, and a red star sits at upper left. The ground shifts from pale green at left through mottled rust and deep red at right, broken by scratches, speckle, and torn edges.

GooGoo Mickey, 2025, museum-quality lightfast ink on aluminum plate, size 33 cm x 61 cm

Black silhouetted forms, part petal and part splayed hand, radiate around a pale-rimmed oval at the center, inside which a mottled dark green mass pools and runs. The ground fades from cool mint at upper left to warm peach below. A band of maroon and violet corrosion crusts the right edge.

Mickey Finn 2 – museum-quality lightfast ink on aluminum plate, size varies (unprinted)

A warm peach and tan field, creased like a page, holds a dark teal-black figure at the left: a rounded mass wrapped in pale curling ribbons, with a peaked form rising above it. At upper right a solid black heart sits beneath a fan of radiating strokes. Two small pale figures, blurred as if caught mid-motion, stand below it.

Mickey Finn 3 – museum-quality lightfast ink on aluminum plate, size varies (unprinted)

A round-eared silhouette fills the frame in dusky charcoal, its edge picked out by a fine beaded line of pale light. Below the head, dark rounded forms suggest a raised gloved hand. The ground glows in muted olive, mauve, and pink, with a soft pink shape at right and a small point of amber light near the lower center.

Mickey Finn 4 – museum-quality lightfast ink on aluminum plate, size varies (unprinted)

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