Some Recent Paintings
I build self-contained worlds peopled with nameable and unnamable objects- worlds where stripes, chevrons, and jagged starbursts combine with fleshy, bodily tubes. In each painting, I seek a solution to a self -generated problem. I work intuitively until a dominating moment emerges.
Elements fit together and fight against each other to create a dialogue between passive and active forms or twisted, organic shapes and hand-rendered geometry. They behave as physical objects; catching light, casting shadows, and weaving through surfaces creating entryways and barriers. At the same time, the space is ambiguous: overlapping shapes dominate and undermine each other, toeing the line between abstract form and illusionism.
My visual vocabulary borrows from architecture, textiles and cartoons. The colors and patterns alternately harmonize and talk over each other, like reams of fabric piled on a table. The canvas edges act as limiting factors for the shapes within; lines are confined as they hit the sides of the square and bounce back into the field of the painting like billiard balls meeting the sides of a table.
The physical state of paint is crucial to my process: I paint thickly, then thinly, dig through, wipe off, and repaint. I braid painted marks together like strands of rope, the portals and obstacles formed entreat the viewer to peer into deeper spaces while also relegating them to the surface. They form frames that weave into one another, allowing differing spaces to enter each other, further complicating the depth and suggesting a transfer between states.