Above and Below , my MFA thesis from the University of Arizona, conveys an interruption in time through a codified arrangement in which the painting references its own internal logic. In-between spaces, imagined landscapes, and particulate matter suspended above and below a perceived reality describe a meaningful distinction between the unknown of a virtual and actual space. The obliteration concurrently separates and unites two worlds into a third space. Memory collapses into reality and the artifical stimuli of the modern world is revealed. Referencing symbolist painters like Gustav Klimt and Michelangelo Antonioni's cult movie Zabriskie Point, the work seeks to approach painting as both an internalized ritual and a rationalized process.  

 

My process for Above and Below, involves collaging images, layering scraps of paper, paint, and transparencies to obscure original photographs and Xeroxes. I begin painting on canvas after the initial collage is resolved, often over-painting multiple times. Paintings become sculptural with the insertion and removal of cut paper, creating a complex hierarchy of surface.  Transition spaces are depicted through stratified landscape, serene waterways nullified by a discharge of power; the viewer is simultaneously confronted and enveloped by abstraction.