Madonna of the Disco Painting

I started painting because I was too cheap to buy adult coloring books. Remember that hot fad where adults could “rediscover the simple joy of coloring” as a form of meditation or stress relief? Upon realizing that $25 was the going rate for one of these coloring books, I decided: “I’ll draw my own damn lines to color in.” And so began my paintings: meditative, unplanned, near electric expressions of the inside of my mind. After developing my voice in the form of curious, geometrically inspired patterns, I began to use form to contain and structure the chaotic medley of colors and shapes that spilled from my brain. I experimented with every form: household appliances, anatomically correct hearts, moths, tea kettles, the female body - finding new ways to create scope and parameters around my patterned madness. For some larger pieces, my process became a practice of transformation. First, I draw the initial subject in India ink and gouache. Second, I photograph the work, import it to Procreate (on an iPad), and re-draw every last detail of the piece. Third, I scale the digital rendering to be significantly larger than its original counterpart and print it in giclée on canvas. And fourth, I then paint back over the print of the digital rendering with gouache, India ink, and gold leafing. Each piece is a page from my diary: visual manifestations of the depths of my mind, thought through again and again, until you can run a finger across the canvas and touch the grooves of my experience.