In my paintings, realistic subjects are re-imagined as artifice. I use highly synthetic colors and an overtly descriptive painting style to create an unnatural interpretation of flesh and objects. This artificiality and depiction of space lends a remarkable strangeness to the work. A random assortment of symbols – fruit, flowers, plants, seashells, and other objects- are chosen from a personal place.
These paintings hold a lightness, an intentional lack of gravity - a floating strangeness and isolation. The objects have their own sentimental attachment for me. I nod at produce that is and has always been present in my kitchen and bright slightly ostentatious flowers that my mother used to grow in abundance around my home in Louisiana. Seashells linger in my psyche from décor I was surrounded by as a child. I choose to paint these objects because these particular shapes and colors have lingered in my memory and feel like a very personal display of my own particular brand of nostalgia.
I aim to inspire awe in the pristine level of finish in my work, but I am in no way trying to fool the viewer into thinking the objects or flesh is real. My paintings only nod to reality while situating themselves firmly in an artificial space.