Exploring connections between other bodies-- queer figures as they relate to one another and landscapes. I am making art based on fantasy inspired by what we lack. Disconnection from the environment leads to greater disconnection with ourselves and others. With climate change looming in the future, some would say it causes other social issues. Subtle elements from day-to-day life ultimately isolate us from connecting with the world outside our bodies.
Exploring connections between other bodies-- queer figures as they relate to one another and landscapes, my work, grounded in paintings, destabilizes the rectangular frame of a painting. I transform plexiglass from dumpsters and plastic, emphasizing the contradiction between fetishized landscapes and environmental destruction. The cut-out drawings now hang, casting shifting shadows, further dismantling the distinction between figure and setting. The translucent grounds of the paintings lend a skin-like quality to the paint, while the reflected light through the brushwork creates a sense of tactility and embodiment. Contour drawings and loose, expressive brushwork also work to blur the boundaries between separate entities–bodies and landscapes become indistinguishable. Material and visual sensuality clash against rough abstract mark-making as a brutish mode of expression. I maintain the same expressive brushwork when I work in rectangles. I paint within and outside self-imposed frames that double as literal and conceptual portals, framing the work and hinting at the porous, permeable nature of the depicted spaces. Ultimately, my work uses the parodic female figure and fetishized landscapes to invite a more nuanced consideration of the intersections between bodies, desire, and the natural world.