Glint
Walter Maciel Gallery
12 March - 7 May, 2022
The new work emerges from the unexpected, fractured and disjointed years of the ongoing pandemic—isolated inside, a longing to be outside became the focus. The paintings and works on paper draw from the natural environment, specifically coastal California’s distinctive light, dramatic landscape, ever-changing geology and diverse weather as catalyst. With limited opportunities to investigate and research in person over months of confinement, mining memories of locale and experience became the driving force for these mixed media, abstract works. The shift in process, palette and materials for this body of work reflects the adjustments we have all felt in a time marked by great personal and collective loss. Reinvestigating recollections and observations of my familiar home state, accessed with sharp clarity, coupled with the unmistakable veil that memory and reflection lends, the new work represents a return to a place that no longer exists and the unfurling of an expanding reminiscence.
I process the natural manifestations and surprising juxtapositions that I have observed by physically composing and manipulating materials. Beginning with painting and staining fabrics with bleach, to remove color, or acrylic and ink to add, in some places the painted areas are dense and saturated while in others the pigments seep, splash and drip. The painted fabrics include canvas, nylon, velvet and silver lamé that are cut into strips and reassembled, creating striated compositions. The fabric bands are offset to produce fragmented forms that mimic the kinetic energy of natural processes. Bringing together congruent and contrasting painted sections, these discontinuous bands of fabric suspend and intertwine different moments--the remnants of experiences, separated by time and definition, are fused with both machine sewing and embedded in more layers of paint. The disjunction of forms allows for multiple perspectives at once, simultaneously capturing the seen and unseen, what is above and below ground, what is ahead and what is behind.
Walter Maciel Gallery
12 March - 7 May, 2022
The new work emerges from the unexpected, fractured and disjointed years of the ongoing pandemic—isolated inside, a longing to be outside became the focus. The paintings and works on paper draw from the natural environment, specifically coastal California’s distinctive light, dramatic landscape, ever-changing geology and diverse weather as catalyst. With limited opportunities to investigate and research in person over months of confinement, mining memories of locale and experience became the driving force for these mixed media, abstract works. The shift in process, palette and materials for this body of work reflects the adjustments we have all felt in a time marked by great personal and collective loss. Reinvestigating recollections and observations of my familiar home state, accessed with sharp clarity, coupled with the unmistakable veil that memory and reflection lends, the new work represents a return to a place that no longer exists and the unfurling of an expanding reminiscence.
I process the natural manifestations and surprising juxtapositions that I have observed by physically composing and manipulating materials. Beginning with painting and staining fabrics with bleach, to remove color, or acrylic and ink to add, in some places the painted areas are dense and saturated while in others the pigments seep, splash and drip. The painted fabrics include canvas, nylon, velvet and silver lamé that are cut into strips and reassembled, creating striated compositions. The fabric bands are offset to produce fragmented forms that mimic the kinetic energy of natural processes. Bringing together congruent and contrasting painted sections, these discontinuous bands of fabric suspend and intertwine different moments--the remnants of experiences, separated by time and definition, are fused with both machine sewing and embedded in more layers of paint. The disjunction of forms allows for multiple perspectives at once, simultaneously capturing the seen and unseen, what is above and below ground, what is ahead and what is behind.
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