Systems and Portraits
My work has evolved out of my need to correct what seems to be a flaw in Photorealism as it was originally validated as a process-based form of Conceptualism. It was the act of transcribing photographic information through paint onto a canvas, yet the large, obsessively detailed images emphasized the painting as an illusion and not a process. I show the grid and emphasize the mark-making process within its increments to reveal the painting process, after all the process and materials are real, and not a photographic illusion. I've incorporated space and stripes as measurements into my paintings to further emphasize the painting as a real object.
Taking "the real" one step further, I have related the subjects of my work to my perceptions of the images and discourse that describe Art History and the Internet. The portraits that I paint allow for me to relate ideas and are only the product of my experience. Therefore, they more accurately depict what I believe to be the essence of painting, which is self-reference. My paintings are about my thought process as I create fictional characters through the relationship of stylistic devices.
My portraits are about creating single identities. They reveal a sense of isolation that comes with specialization and a distortion of the real through simulations such as Facebook. As the objectives of my painting have become a quest to find what is real and true, the subject matter of my work has become an exaggerated unreality of constructed identity.
