A Year of Painting: documenting through abstraction
I started this series of paintings in March of 2020. It has been an interesting year to paint—and a lot to process. With my painting, as always, I am seeking a deeper understanding through the artwork, as well as taking refuge in the act of creating it. I found myself vacillating between the need to create something of lightness and positivity to counteract the events of the times, and the need to paint directly into some of those events. And sometimes what would surface was a surprising intersection of the two.
The title, A Year of Painting: documenting through abstraction, speaks to an attempt to make sense of the year. I'm fascinated by contrasts in the world. How, for example, empathy and cruelty can exist in the same event—or how a really beautiful blue-sky day last April could coexist with what we were all feeling in those early days of the pandemic. My paintings are primarily abstract and consider these contrasts in terms of value and color, soft and hard edges, and other variations within surfaces and textures, alongside expression of line work.
Watercolor challenges me to work relatively quickly and decisively, and then it forces a pause and reflect period. The work becomes a layering process, while striving to maintain continuity between pauses. When I paint, my goal is to stay in the moment reacting to the materials and the colors in front of me. I might start with a general idea of where I'm going with a painting, but the minute the first marks or shapes are on the paper, it becomes about reacting to what's there. If the paintings feel right to me on an intuitive level, then maybe they will communicate to others as well.