This work is part of a larger series titled “never/ever”, which explores a world of psychologically-informed landscapes and waterscapes that express intersections of death, change and wonder.
I grew up collecting the fossil form of stalked crinoids—an ancient and still existing family of marine animals. The chunks of little rings were like stacked coins and were abundant in the Tennessee valley of my childhood. Their language, their life, and their continuance in many forms has lodged itself into my drawing vocabulary. They’ve been through centuries of turmoil and adaptation. In this piece, they are anchored to the floor and are in a state of reconciling their new reality- as they used to float freely. They are in an ambiguous fuschia environment— hinting at a magenta ocean that has enveloped and changed the terrain. The color is born out of a residency I had with the DasSarma Lab Group, who study a special Halobacterium, “a salt-loving, radiation-resistant” (cite) archaea microorganism, which happens to affect this magnificent magenta/purple upon a variety of bodies of water, and might have even dominated the color of the earth when life was at its early stages.
In this loose and ever-changing narrative, these beings are suffering, persisting, dancing, and whispering to the deep time that is behind and ahead of them.
- Framed: 34 x 42 x 6 in
- Collections: Recent Paintings & Layered Works