ARTIST STATEMENT

My current work represents an investigation of collection. Specifically, how collection exists in and out of the context of painting. What does it mean to collect, gather, bundle, pile, group, relate, congregate, or stack? How and why do two or more objects come to be together? Sometimes, collection is familiar and curated. Other times, it is accidental and subconsciously dismissed. In my work, I embrace and question the concept of traditional still life painting through known and unknown spaces.

I curate still lifes using found and familiar objects within arms-reach. Composition is carefully formulated to include visually interesting objects, patterns, and shapes. Sometimes, digital manipulation of works-in-progress drive experimentation and abstraction. At this stage, the paintings are woven with impulsive digital mark-making to aid the viewer's visual journey, and to reinforce the painting as an object. Outside of familiar spaces, I photograph collections that have been purposefully or accidentally curated by others. This congregation of objects is then introduced into the rectangle in its raw form, where it is also followed by manipulation and abstraction.

My paintings question how both familiar and unfamiliar collections relate to one another visually and conceptually. Does removing something from its original context inherently warp the object's meaning? The way we once viewed these objects, if at all, is now complicated by the rectangle.

How can still life painting contribute to reinvention?