Strawberry Print

In my studio practice, childhood narrative and abstraction serve as a catalyst for bridging formal and conceptual concerns in painting. I am drawn to and explore moments that convey traces of uncertainty, insecurity, and fear, which I feel speak to our deepest and earliest memories. I use abstraction and rotting fruit-like shapes as metaphor for childhood memories. By massing materials, shapes, and textures to describe the feeling of these recollections through the language of abstraction, I precipitate fragments of my psychology as I examine my personal growth since childhood. I am influenced by the layering and mark-making of early cave painting. I have also studied the processes and intuition of the New York School painters. Lastly, I am informed by contemporary abstract painters who give me the permission to allow abstraction to go beyond formalism. My work serves a bridge between the rawness of the drawing process and my own personal story. I begin my process by writing the narrative of the piece on the surface. This to me serves a spiritual cleansing makes the piece about the narrative. Next, I bury the story through in an of detritus of additive charcoal marks restrained by layers of paint. I am drawn to the fragility and flexibility of paper– it allows me to constrict and expand the image as needed.