PAINTING

Painting has always been an organic and intuitive process for me. It’s about discovering an image, as opposed to painting with an image already in my mind. My beginnings are often playful experiments of layered chaos, accidents, and free expression. Over time certain elements begin to stand out and resonate with a feeling that I want to retain or explore further. In pursuit of an elusive resolution, the image can change many times. Often, remnants of a previous iteration will remain, or sometimes fade away when covered up by a new layer. Yet each change leads me closer to building the image to a place that rests.

COLLAGE

Working within my current space and time limitations, I began searching for a new way of making images. I found that appropriating photos from magazines and books provided me with a jumping off point. I tend to choose the part of an image that is not the focus of the original; it is often just a detail or fragment. I’m interested in editing the images to the point of near abstraction, and yet still hold some semblance of connection to the known world. Instead of layering images on top of one another like a traditional collage, I chose to assemble three edited images together in series, more like a storyboard or film strip. I don’t view them in a Western, left to right narrative (although I think that is how some people will “read” them). I read them at times together and sometimes jump from one to another, collecting what the images suggest to me. Then I assemble them in my mind. I decided to mount each image separately, on a surface away from the wall to make them more object like, less flat. Doing so is another way of moving away from art as a window and more towards abstraction. I hope that the assembled triptychs stir feelings in the viewer akin to fragmented memory or the fading of dreams, and whatever connection is made evolves or changes upon different viewings.