Altered States (Vermilion) (2018) Altered States (blue diptych) (2018) Altered States (Green) (2019) Altered States (deep red diptych) (2019) Altered States (Frizzle) (2017) Altered States (Gold) (2018) Altered States (Night Sky) (2017) Altered States (Terrori Nascosti) (2019) Altered States (Blue Panel) (2019) Altered States (vermilion diptych) (2019) Altered States (vermilion diptych) DETAIL Altered States (Celadon) (2017)
This series plays with the overlap between a range of longstanding influences on my visual vocabulary: Indian miniatures, scientific imagery, musical notation and mapping.
Central forms suggest landmass, non-specific geographic shapes containing hundreds of brushed dots of gold acrylic and powdered pigment, the ground multiple layers of deep velvety color. While painting these dots, over time shapes form, figures emerge. I add more marks, figures disappear into their neighbors, and a larger shape appears. Depending on the angle of the lighting and the position of the viewer, the metallic paint shimmers like a scrim floating on the surface, concealing the underlying forms, or recedes into the surface color, revealing the marks more clearly.
The larger works function as externalized thinking–visual stories emerge and current events impinge on the painting, leaving indefinable traces. The smaller works are in some ways the children of the larger ones, products of their conceptual labor.