Artist Statement
I primarily describe myself as a painter to most acquaintances, but I feel my work is more heavily rooted in material investigation. Sifting through piles of cloth, loose threads, remnants of failed paintings, dyed color studies, snippets of photographs, scraps of splatters and drips cut out from old works– I constantly recycle the remnants of my process so that I may reanimate small portions of my soul and further dive into the mystery of making. Bleaching and re-dyeing old paintings or photographs is a kind of washing and baptizing of memory. Only fragments remain as one work carries into the next, and these shadows act as guides to create new forms and rhythms. Stains and drips are cut out of older works and reattached as glorified jewels of adornment to heavenly bodies of magenta and azure. I sometimes imagine these leftover fragments are painful scabs I’m peeling off and reattaching to new bodies, testaments to the wounds that created them, but also reminders of growth and healing. In my studio, a constant cycle of making and unmaking allows me to slowly unravel moments of my restless psyche.
