STATEMENT

In the lavishly decorated, conservative household where I grew up, wallpaper doubled as God, surrounding and surveilling me. I used to envision the patterns as backdrops for the riverbeds and rocks in the canyon down the street. Their graphic abbreviations of the natural world inform my synesthetic approach to painting, which translates place through sensory impressions.

Elements of Yuan Dynasty scrolls, vintage décor, and Abstract Expressionism combine in stained and poured color fields. Ranging from splashed ink inventions to observed forms, water-based mediums convey urban density, subtropical light, and other characteristics of landscape. Pour and pattern flow together, complicating the surface and unfolding of time.

Photo: 

C. Freedom, 2024

Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans