2024
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I often place my canvases in conversation with the Earth’s landscapes and create many of my paintings utilizing the four elements (earth, water, fire and air) as co-collaborators. During a recent residency on Milos Island (Aegean Sea, Greece), I found a deserted area to collaborate with nature on a painting and documented the entire process. The painting’s initial charcoal markings were made in part by my gestural movements along with the wind’s command. Next, the canvas was soaked in water in a nature-made, womb-like crevice before natural pigments were painted onto the final piece.
This photograph is a still from a performance video of the painting’s creation, particularly as it’s bound to a cliff side facing the open water, calling out to it like a siren, while it dries in the sandy and salty wind.
Working in this way is a ceremony to honor nature and remind us how connected we are to her. It also poses questions around ego and authorship in the creation of art. As threats to creativity and the natural world (specifically AI) increase, I believe it’s important to simplify and return to our natural roots. Popular painting materials in contemporary art (acrylics are plastics, and oils require chemicals) eventually harm the earth. Yet, painting practices could widely return to being made of and with our main source. The Earth-womb crevice also odes to the cyclical nature of source.