My paintings use deconstructive processes that mirror my experience living with OCD to explore themes of identity and perception.
The deconstructive methods, whether it be layering gestural mark-making over delicate underpaintings or pressure-washing layers of acrylic creating fully abstract paintings, is ultimately about control and surrender, order and chaos and the tension in between. As OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is a disorder of control in search of safety the physical acts of deconstruction turn each of my paintings into performed translations of identity into action and emblems of emotion.
Ranging from hyper-realistic portraits, floral still-lifes, or full abstraction my subject matter ultimately is about identity and the ways our perspectives shape our reality. Raised with OCD in a secular household within a hyper-religious Mormon city forced me to constantly evaluate the contrast between my perspective and the social, cultural and political constructs around me; My thoughts and beliefs, while rational to me, were absurd and irreverent to others. Consequently, my portraits feature figures and themes depicted in a way that contradict the viewers’ expectations such as sexuality and the mythology of cowboys or internet notoriety and the vast landscape of the American West.
Plants and animals serve a symbolic role in my work as well. I see their domestication and wild habitats as metaphors for control and chaos. I use found color palettes while hiking and want my representation of the natural world to live in a space of tension where meaning and representation is not fixed but continually negotiated.
My artistic process is entrenched within the tension of order and spontaneity and I’m continually exploring new ways of representing it through deconstruction; I’ve painted over work with gestural marks, broken down images sequentially from realism to abstraction, digitally layered fragments of images, and most recently abandoned all representation by repetitively layering and pressure-washing acrylic works sealed with various sealants and mediums to preserve layers. Adding a sense of improvisation is paramount to my work as it forces me to confront the unknown. I want to explore this palimpsest-like process further as I’m enchanted at the way it visually removes barriers between mimicry and the illusion of the picture plane. I want to continually disrupt my own systems as I need structure to begin and spontaneity to arrive at somewhere honest