Most of Robert Middaugh’s 36 small, whimsical paintings at Printworks (26 on the walls, the others viewable by request) show empty suits posed as if someone were inside. At times a hat hovers over where the head would be, and occasionally you can see hints of a person beneath the fabric–like the well-defined muscles in Strong Suit. In Emperor’s New Suit most of the “clothing” is invisible, revealing the body beneath, including a small penis: “I figured emperors are tiny,” he says. The idea for the series came to him four years ago, when he began thinking of words and sayings related to clothes: “yellow jacket,” for example, and “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Often he shows an awareness of how clothing is constructed; as a child, he watched his mother take apart old clothes and sew them into something new.
