The material substance and tactility of my paintings suggest: cracked and peeling paint/plaster; bodily wounds and scarring; the apparition of American stars like blisters; and injuries that have been pathetically mended with tape. I consider my current body of work as fragments of the American state, depicted in its sallow material form, in need of regeneration and repair. The fluorescent stripe patterns and plastic-like orange skin - borrowed from construction barriers and traffic cones - signal both a condition of emergency and a state of de/construction. My current work also incorporates references to neoclassical architecture, particularly that of the White House, which I see as an aesthetic tool for asserting the authority of the American state - even as the democratic traditions it references continue to crumble.
To better explore the affective condition of American state power, and the decline of democratic principles, I have utilized natural painting mediums like milk paint, egg tempera, and natural glues. These are materials that are more incline to entropy, and I intensify that quality as I work, actively deteriorating the paintings as they are made. By substituting conventional paint for earth-based substances I am also giving the completed paintings permission to peel, crack, and otherwise change over course of their life. I see the entropy of paintings as an opportunity to reflect on the way all material forms, and even immaterial forms like the notion of “America,” reshape themselves across time. As I make, I consider the difficulty of trying to implement order and control, the futility of trying to hold something together.