My work, acrylic paintings on varied concrete surfaces, deals in the language of pattern and reproduction. These patterns come from decorative interior sources, such as mid-century fabrics or 20th century woodblock-printed wallpapers. Drawing inspiration from the motifs and politics of the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as the history of appropriation and reproduction since the invention of photography, I use these motifs to speak to experiences of home.
Home, an expansive term so regularly described as transcending the physical, is something on which I aim to reach my own conclusions through material exploration, domestic motifs, and delicate hand-reproduced patterns. This emotional practice of building home, as well as my physical practice of painting, relies on contrast. Delicate, historically expensive patterns, combine with the material significance of concrete, wire, wood, and styrofoam to elicit contradiction and fragility among memories of home and safety.
These contradictions extend beyond the visible into the history of material and motif, from the contradictory nature of William Morris’ desire to create quality goods priced for working people, to a Western desire to subjugate nature projecting its idealized form into Roman frescos, or toile fabrics, or medieval courtly tapestries, or the same 19th century wallpapers I am drawn to.
