Both overtly and through the taught canon of art history, I was told that abstraction wasn’t for me; that it was white men in the early to mid-century that created and owned this form of art making. But as I continued to look and research deeper into who is written into and out of history–and who writes that narrative in the first place–the reality became clear that the largely white male cohort credited with abstraction’s inception were not the only ones practicing at the time; and furthermore, that abstraction has and always will belong to every human, in every culture, of every race, and of every gender. It has always been the building block of visual culture and design, much of which has been created and cultivated with pride by the hands of women and people of color. Institutions have referred to it as “artifact” or “craft” and collectively decided that these works value less than the movements of “High Art” that referenced it.  This distinction leading inevitably to canonical erasure, made easier because history never sought to learn the names of those that created the work. 

I have come to reframe what so much of art history has centered; and in turn, to amplify the reality that, historically, abstraction has largely been the work of women and nonwhite communities across time and place and is one of the most timeless and globalized forms of art making. Like laughter, grief, love, awe and most utterances of the human spirit, it knows no borders. It is historically and inherently conceptual, formal, and functional—a way of communicating as well as interpreting the world around us. Abstract artwork is collaborative; perpetually asking for both the artist’s and the viewer’s individual memories, emotions, and perspectives to complete the work; made new and made whole by the act of interpretation. There is an intrinsic hospitality offered by abstraction; sympathetically calling to our desire to understand and to be understood.

 Like nature and culture–this archive of abstraction is not a static relic; but is rather a beating, evolving, endlessly generative entity that can be drawn from and added to; being made into something more complex and diverse along the way.  It is here, rooted in this ever-changing and expanding archive that I center my practice. Within this context, my work looks to nature and its systems of cyclicality, growth, and change that parallel our own. Through my practice, I seek to visually articulate the multifaceted qualities of recollection, reimagination, and remaking as functions of growth and transformation; as well as explore the distinct environmental impressions that contextualize our memories, provide emotional feedback, and influence the way we see the world and others; while we, too, leave reciprocal traces of ourselves on it. 

My paintings oscillate between faceted, quilt-like works that explore the compulsive tendency towards compartmentatalization and the desire to repeat, reframe, rethink and repurpose; and more fluid pieces that seemingly generate beyond the canvas’ edges, calling to the passage of time, fluctuations of being, and the natural and forceful rhythms of nature. Within my works I employ a dynamic interplay between shifting color, delicate negative space, and dense layers of form –where edges meet and morph, and colors and opacities shift–inviting a closer look. 

 My research centers on the expanding scope of abstraction, as well as the concept that the construction of self, memory, and reality are in a constant state of flux; continually molded and informed by the dynamic collaboration of our experiences, perspectives, decisions, and the places—tangible and intangible— in which they occur. Like the act of painting itself, my work seeks to create the feeling of concurrently experiencing an event and the resulting memory of it.  Through each painting, I aim to evoke a sense of constant transformation; capturing the simultaneity of creating, deconstructing, and remaking anew; of experiencing, archiving, and remembering; of tracking in marks, gestures, and fields of color our own evolution.