Current Investigations:

My practice has become increasingly process-focused, where meaning can unfold through making rather than being predetermined. Instead of solely working with a fixed image or foundational line work, I have been building my paintings by beginning with blocks of color and eventually adding line. The act of painting in this new process has become a form of research creation. This type of research generates understanding through making, where the value lies less in the finished product and more in how you got there. 

The shift in my work began by adding a paper practice, starting with smaller paper pieces then moving to larger canvas paintings. Paper, a less precious material to me, encouraged more focus on value, shape, and color with less fight for structural control. Beginning a paper practice was essential in helping me arrive at my current approach and will be important to maintain while I work on my larger pieces.  

A key development in my work has been thinking about thick and thin paint as a way of exploring time. While I am not directly putting these philosophical ideas on the canvas, I have been thinking about “thick time” and “thin time”, terms discussed in Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson. This book encouraged me to consider how material, specifically thick and thin paint, can imitate time in a more active way. Thick time is something that is complex and heady; it carries weight, both physical and emotional. Thin time feels more in flux, lighter and transitional, less considered, yet structural, these terms braided together begin to resemble the layered and unstable nature of memory.  

This knowledge has pushed me to experiment with different viscosities of paint: transparent washes with water, transparent washes with alcohol, thin opaque paint, and thick opaque paint with medium. I’ve also been using alcohol to wipe away or scrape at layers of paint previously applied. This process requires time and patience. Time to sit and think, to sit and stare at the work and respond to what is present.  

This connects to my interest in the effort of remembering, fueled by the quote from Jacquline Haprman’s, I Who Have Never Known Men. “Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else”. The act of remembering promotes the idea that memory is not passive but active, physical, and laborious. Painting becomes a bodily act of remembering: moving around the canvas, scraping, layering, and responding in real time. My surfaces are beginning to hold traces of these actions. 

I have been spending time looking closely at artists such as Ezra Cohen, Doron Langberg, Jennifer Packer, and Justin Ogilvie, particularly Ogilvie’s MFA work, which aligns with my interest in memory. I am still intensely interested in their processes, and how their work holds both presence and instability at the same time. Artists that are in my periphery are Jenna Gribbon, Mama Anderson, Elizabeth Peyton, Jordan Casteel, and Alice Neel. Most recently I was introduced to Richard Diebenkorn and stumbled upon Cecily Brown, both of which made me very excited by their rich and active mark making, color play, and abstraction through shape.