The last few years have, until recently, forced us all to stay put. My daily path has become much shorter, and my usually frequent travel around the country has been slow to resume. I’ve turned to studying the intimacy of my home and the people in it. We are literally bouncing off the walls, and the behavioral loop of tension and concession between family members confined to a tight radius has made its way into my studio. This latest body of work reflects the daily grind of, and ultimate comfort in, intimate relationships. We sit between boredom and unease. I aspire to maintain a similar anxiety or slipperiness in my work. While there is always something trustworthy, like a clear central axis or underlying pattern, the paintings barely hold together the more chaotic and unpredictable information that edges towards the periphery of each piece. I want there to be an uneasy union between visual elements. I think of these paintings as arial views of the domestic “rectangles” we put to use every day: a loud but loving family dinner table, or the phenomenon of going to bed alone but waking to a tangle of four family members jockeying for purchase. My paintings are an equally a rowdy bunch, and the pleasure in working lies in the balancing act of wrestling with colors, patterns, and techniques while also allowing an image to unfold organically.

These paintings are made with casein, a milk-based paint originally used for painting wooden furniture, on wood panels primed with a traditional marble dust and hide glue ground. This provides a surface for painting that is as absorbent and delicate as paper but durable enough to heavily tape, sand, and layer upon, giving it the physicality of a ceramic tile or frescoed wall. This particular combination of materials is the result of years of experimentation with different media and techniques, and ultimately alludes to my interest in architecture, building materials, and by extension a continuing exploration of public versus private space and the development and collapse of the built environment.

GC 2022