Art Gallery

I attribute my necessity for creative expression to a cross-generational byproduct.  My grandmother is a songwriter, and both my Swedish grandparents were modernist painters. Since I was a small child, my avenue for communicating my feelings has been writing songs and making paintings.  What I aim to communicate now is a tension between the stages of healing and memory.  Even now, I am unsure how to be open about my trauma when discussing my art.  I survived years of childhood sexual abuse, and trauma has shaped how I view the world and how I create. 

 

While I strive for my home to be a place of healing and safety, it is an imperfect challenge.  Healing is not synonymous with joy, and the spaces in my paintings are recreations of powerful domestic moments that grapple with this.  As I paint, I adjust the space to be in better alignment with my healing journey by copiously attending to a painting’s surface—scraping and repainting while allowing buried color remnants to peek through.  While the spark for a painting begins with what I see with my own eyes, I curate and specifically choose objects I feel elevate the narrative.  Yearning for various color zones, I search for different worlds that exist within a single viewpoint.  There is an odd tension as your eye moves through the spaces in a non-linear manner—bouncing back and forth, mirroring the stages of healing, hurting, and healing again. 

 

I see the world angularly but not necessarily accurately, and the perspective often leans awkwardly.  Evidence of the process remains visible, yet there is a concealed vigor waiting to be disburdened.  The figures in my paintings are not always clearly seen, and the vivid colors juxtapose the uneasiness.  Color behaves as a barrier and protection.  My paintings reveal how I reprocess the present while my textile abstractions, which are assembled from the same color world, reprocess memories.  

 

My work is an attempt to manifest new value in something that is broken, physically and intangibly.  I recreate abstract “essences” from memories into large sheets of plaster, that are held together with alternating layers of sheer fabric.  They merge fragility with strength.  They crumble but remain intact.  Thinking about the fickleness of memory, I stretch the fabric so it teeters on its capacity.  When it nears the point of falling apart, I ensure the pieces remain connected.  I ask myself questions: Does something have value if it is broken?  How can materiality communicate the themes I confront? Can I reconcile and coexist with my memories?  Understanding trauma’s place has allowed me to explore, nurture, and reprocess.