In Time and Repetition
The starting point for this body of oil paintings and gouache works is collecting used, mass-produced fabric items, which I arrange into 3-dimensional structures. For this series, I’ve chosen just four: a polyester shirt, a polyester skirt, a woven skirt, and a tablecloth. Looking to these still lifes, I create carefully considered works in oil or gouache. In doing so, I make numerous intuitive and analytic decisions, countering the ever-increasing pace in which these types of items are produced and consumed. As an act of reverence, each is painted to scale.
The mass-produced objects integral to my work are infused by an exploration of visual thinking. It is my hope that the unseen labor of thought, combined with my labor-intensive process, will produce works with a particular materiality so that that meaning can unfold slowly over time. A fundamental concern is how we, as humans, experience, understand, and impact the world around us. The paintings, balanced between representation and abstraction, recast what may otherwise be overlooked as banal into singular poetic experience.