Snakestones 2 (Grasping Growth and Decay) Painting

Layered in flashing dripping color, these painted shapes alter their environments, existing as floating entities, flat and unmoving but vibrating in living and changing color. At once foreign and familiar, the entities are made of the shadow of dozens of hands, overlapping and writhing, until the boundaries between each other disappear and only exist as a unified filter between themselves and their environment. The pattern in the backgrounds are inspired by botanical fabric and wallcovering design, but with vibrant and sometimes unexpected color cords. The title of the series, Snakestones, comes from the idea of loosely-tied witchdoctor practices throughout the world where a special object, often times a stone with holes is it, can be used to draw out snake venom from a victim to save their life. This idea, in my mind, takes on a power of its own to control the venom that would otherwise kill you, and that perhaps in this transference of death, there is a rebirth and transformation.