My recent paintings are a convergence of two revelations related to my artistic practice: A journey to the southwest and an emerging interest in the figure. These experiences have led me to explore the abstract merging of the body within a landscape setting.
I first visited the southwest during the summer of 2021. The feeling of awe that came with experiencing the region’s immense landscapes was overwhelming. I was enamored with the striated minerals in the rocks, like looking at the endless veins of the earth. I felt compelled to replicate the feeling of these lines by using charcoal and pastel in my paintings, reflecting the different vibrating frequencies and intensity of the rock lines. The sky never felt so blue, and the hues of blue as the sun rose and set brought a feeling of sacred peace. I needed to incorporate the colors of the landscape in some way, such as the ancient red clay and the intense blue and white of the sky. There was also a need to leave areas of the bare canvas and panel exposed, to try and capture the feeling of openness of the landscape. I wanted to convey the feelings I had of yearning to connect with the earth’s energy and taking those feelings with me upon my return. I found that I could express the landscape in my own unique way without resorting to a strictly landscape approach, and that an abstract artist could find reinvention by being directly inspired by nature.
The inspiration for the figure comes from starting to attend weekly drawing sessions in 2021. I began attending the sessions by chance to approach my drawing practice from a new perspective. I consider my work with pastel and charcoal not as sketches, but as self-contained pieces that force me to focus on the essence of the pose. In these drawing sessions, I’m in a meditative state where I’m reacting to how my abstract language interprets the lines and shapes of the body. I’m driven by what excites me visually as I perform the physical act of drawing. As a result, the exploration is intensely personal. Certain rhythms of lines or shapes begin to co-mingle with the gestural drawing, and these drawings provide an inspiration (not a guide) for my paintings. Sometimes the presence of the figure is literal, with silhouettes stalking through distorted remnants of interiors from my dreams. In other paintings, the figure becomes a stick-like insect or blob, caught in a swirl of abstract debris. As I’ve explored the disintegration of the figure in more depth, the repetition of limbs and poses on a single surface create emerging patterns forming new creatures unique to my implementation of abstraction, part bug, part totem pole, part ruined map. These creatures find themselves journeying within the greater landscapes of the paintings.
