2D Studio Art - Painting & Drawing
There is an old southern wives’ tale about cardinals incarnating a departed loved one, paying you a visit. I won’t pretend I know the cultural origins of this phenomenon, but I speculate that they may lie in the novelty of seeing such a brightly colored, ephemeral presence, with the emotional charge that coincides with contemplating nature—usually sitting on a porch or looking out a window. How bizarre is it to find comfort in nostalgia in what is fundamentally a memento mori. In this instance, a symbol somehow consolidates the universal fear of impermanence with familiarity and optimism. This is what Death & Plaid seeks to capture: comfort, warmth, and nostalgia holding hands with the quasi-universal fear of the end.
Plaid as a pattern, although originally representing Scottish clans, has grown to embody contemporary masculinity. So, naturally, I began implementing the symbol in my work as a means of self-expression, of articulating myself through a two-dimensional object of identification. However, my perception of the masculinity that plaid represents is disparate from that which permeates our patriarchal, misogynistic society—a masculinity rather neutral, headstrong but nonviolent, active but not exploitative, independent but not isolated. But through the repetitive act of painting this series of squares, lines, and rectangles, the meaning gets lost to that drawn from the process itself. Planning the layout, waiting for the oil to dry between layers, meticulously squaring off each section of color, all render the process of painting plaid a Sisyphean endeavor to which I feel involuntary bound to. I joke that plaid will be the death of me.
In Freudian psychoanalytic theory (although highly disputed), the origin of behaviors is differentiated between the “life-drive” and the “death-drive”. The former being what is conducive to survival, procreation, pleasure, and well-being, the latter to aggression, auto destruction, and repetition compulsion. The death drive is not necessarily that which drives you towards death, but the impulse to stagnate, to reduce external stimulus, to forego potential pleasure and eschew prosocial comportment in favor of stability. Death & Plaid seeks to consolidate these drives; subject matter reflecting life, process reflecting death.
moms, 16 x 20 (2) oil and colored pencil on birch panel
death, 3 x 6 (1 of 4), oil and beechwood tar on birch panel
death, 3 x 6 (2 of 4), oil and beechwood tar on birch panel
death, 3 x 6 (3 of 4), oil and beechwood tar on birch panel
death, 3 x 6 (4 of 4), oil and beechwood tar on birch panel
blanket, 9 x 12 (2), 12 x 16, oil and beechwood tar on birch panel
plaid, 6 x 32 (2), oil on birch panel
