Gaslight #4 Print

This one-of-a-kind painting is acrylic and 24k gold on canvas. This piece comes stretched, wired-ready to hang, and double sealed with two varnish coats. The first varnish is a UV protection that keeps the colors vibrant for decades even if exposed to harsh sunlight. The second varnish coat protects against dust, moisture, or humidity from working their way into the fibers of the canvas.

I’ve seen more gaslighting in America in the last year than I ever have before. I witnessed people I knew and trusted invalidating the experiences and realities of their family and friends with opposing political viewpoints. People who I considered loving, gentle, and kind made it clear that power or being “right” is more important than the human being on the other side of their social media post. Reality has felt murky this past year.
 These pieces represent realities, dark and light, true and false. We all go through different experiences in the world which forms our realities. The etymology of the term “Gaslight” comes from a 1938 play written by Patrick Hamilton called Angel Street. In the play, a husband systematically tries to convince his wife that she is going insane, one of his tactics; dimming and flickering the gas lamps in the house. We do this to each other when we invalidate someone’s experience. We do this when we assert that the things we care about are categorically more important than what someone else cares about. We turn out the lights on our neighbors all the time. The elements of this series deal with conflicting truths, the pain of unknown realities, and the supremacy of the value of our fellow human beings. The stark contrast between dark, midnight blues and the raw, creamy, pearl canvas was the first creative choice. The contrasting canvas color illustrates our different understandings of what is true about the world.
 When making these works I cut out imperfect sections of canvas and hand sewed these realities into other canvases. I made the choice to sew them by hand instead of doing clean machine stitching because the hand stitching looks painful. When realities collide it is raw. It is painful. It is ugly. It pulls at the fabric of what we know to be true and what we believe about the world around us. It feels like you’re going crazy because this feeling is wholly “other.” Our realities are never clean cut, it is almost never a perfect meeting of the minds, just like these patches of canvas.
 As with my previous collections (The Divide, There Will Be More), our lifelines are a major focal point. For the first time ever in a series, I chose to make the lifelines in 24k gold, symbolic of the fact that every human being is valuable and worthy of love, even if you disagree with and hate what they stand for. Here is a visual reminder that you are golden and valuable even if we live in different realities. These pieces are a reminder to think before we speak and to compassionately listen with the intent to understand, not merely to respond. Let’s pause before we gaslight someone by telling them their reality isn’t real, or asserting that our reality is the most important one. Choose to love and invest in the lives of the real human beings around us, instead of asserting that they must bend to our will, in order to be worthy or valuable.