STAIN PAINTINGS
The flowers on mattresses are there, I think, to distract us from our bodies and the messes they make. These paintings on found mattress fabric re-train our eyes on the stains, the losses of control, and the worn quality of the surfaces, bucking conventional symbolisms and associations with the floral while still engaging with their presence.
Found stains structure the compositions and are foregrounded as authentic moments of gestural expression against the more mechanical and misleading patterns. In a modernist ideal of painting, the hand's "mark" or gesture is privileged as the part of the body that conveys the expression of the author. In these paintings, however, it is the body itself--and its instinctual functions--that reveal the essence of our "nature".
These paintings have been shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions in cities across the country. For the most part, they were created in 2014-15, although the first one was made in 2010.