STATEMENT

My paintings are made by pushing oil paint from the reverse side of a loose-weave linen support, forcing the pigment through the fabric pores so that it extrudes out the front in small loops and threads. This process produces an artwork that sits somewhere between painting and textile, between image and object. The resulting surfaces are insistently tactile and are often misread as something crafted rather than painted—like needlepoints, rugs, tapestries, or other artifacts of the past. I use this slippage between time periods and between media to introduce disorientation in the viewer’s mind. The paintings all but compel further inquiry into the material process that creates them and also into its resonances and intentions.

A few years ago, I began exploring what I call the “uncanny valley of everyday life” – a term meant to frame a growing sense of collective suspension in the face of social and technological upheaval. The images I deploy – often derived from surveillance-like vantage points, sites of passage, or depopulated homes and public spaces – are selected for their liminal nature. Liminality is the state of being “betwixt and between,” where existing moorings have broken and new ones have not yet been found. My images all suggest imminent but uncertain action. They also reference the pixelated quality of digital photography – where meaning is legible from a distance but devolves into incoherence when viewed closely.

In combination with they paintings’ physical ambiguity, my works try to avoid fixed narratives while embodying the idea that perception is faulty and stability is illusory. At the same time, their associations with domestic objects such as rugs and needlepoints offers a hint of comfort – and a brush with the allure of strangeness.