This painting is an exploration of the tension between the desire to have structure in one's life vs. the reality we find ourselves living. It engages with memory and nostalgia, incorporating collaged elements such as an old business card, a trading card from Meow Wolf, and cut out images from a children's picture book.
The composition for this painting started with masking off portions of the surface with blue masking tape and pieces of paper. I used a straight edge and a pencil to draw a 1cm x 1cm grid, drawing the horizontal lines, then changing which areas are masked before drawing the vertical lines. Throughout the course of making the painting I masked off portions and moved pulled up areas that had previously been masked, creating a chaotic sense of jumbled structure inside the painting. The grid provided framework for other types of regular pattern overlaid with poured paint and gestural brushstrokes. The cut out images are barely recognizable and seem to fade into the surrounding color fields.
- Subject Matter: abstract
- Created: January 2023
- Collections: Background Ruler (2021 -), Normal Eyes and Terrible Things