ARTIST STATEMENT

After twenty-two years, I left what I considered home all my life and moved to a different state. As my friends and family scattered, I suddenly found myself isolated and yearning for their physical and emotional closeness like I once had. My work began to adapt to these new conditions, embracing these wants and shifting into representations of myself, loved ones and the familiar countryside of where I grew up in Tennessee. My narrative paintings of female figures submerged within dreamy landscapes reconcile with the loss, guilt, and grief that I associate with leaving my home and family. My figures are sometimes joined by other people or animals, but each one is reckoning with her position in her vivid universe alone.

​

My compositions do not depict my experiences literally – my figures portray a version of myself as I contemplate and reflect on the aftermath of previous people and events in my life. Whether they explicitly assume my likeness or only have a few similarities, each figure assumes equal responsibility in depicting myself. By doing this, I can transcribe my emotions in a way so that I can properly address personal pain without visually confronting each and every painful memory. The ambiguity of the imagery also allows the viewer to imagine themselves as the figure within the painting and individually connect to the narrative.

The painting process is both highly physical and mental for me. My canvases are thickly layered with paint as I