Please join us and meet the artist on September 29th from 5 to 7 p.m. for an opening reception. Light refreshments and cash bar are provided.
The show is focused on the grieving process, the ceremonies associated with it, and coming to terms with loss. The title refers to a refrain heard during the planning a funeral - what would the deceased have wanted for this ceremony? I am asking these questions of myself through referring to traditions including Vanitas and memento mori. The paintings present nostalgia; looking through old photos, looking back at past versions of self, at past lives, etc.
Investigating impermanence, my work focuses on grief and acceptance. Through portraiture, layered paintings of personal narrative, and explorations of line and form, I contend with the loss implied by the passage of time. Materially, my practice reflects the liminality I attempt to capture. By using paint as a drawing tool, my completed works can appear in-process. I find resolve in the open and half-done, leaving spaces for the mind to fill in. My use of media demonstrates transition; through blurring, transparency, layering, collage, and wet-on-wet painting. For me, the resolution of a piece occurs at a mid-point, where looseness and structure, ambiguity and clarity, are in balance. My studio is a space where I can connect with a sense of spirituality. The rituals used by my ancestors to demarcate thresholds - from adolescence to adulthood, from living to dying - are not often present in my experience, so my work serves as a personal ritual practice. Within it, I am able to compose eulogies to each passing day and memorialize people, places and things through the act of painting. My source material is often photographs of people who have passed away, places I have passed through, and moments I can no longer access. Just as grief naturally evolves, my relationship to the source material changes over time in an interpolation of emotions and painting styles - reflective of my striving towards acceptance.Through working with my hands, I am more able to contend with the transient; grasping, shaping, and reclaiming grief.
