Project: The Island Paintings

Dates: 2022 - 2025

Description: 

These paintings are related to memory, identity, place-keeping (i.e., tending), and uncertainty. They are inspired by two paintings: The Lotus Eaters by Thomas Moran and An Eruption of Vesuvius by Johan Christian Dahl. The former interests me due to its placement of the viewer on the island, looking out at the ocean with a ship in the distance—a scene that feels apropos to our current reality of being tethered to comfort as the world burns around us; wildfires and smoke have begun creeping into my subject matter, reflecting on current events and environmental concerns. What is the  untenable sublime? A beautiful destruction in the context of generative death and rebirth?

These paintings are about transformation and escapism. They revolve around shifting states, otherworldliness, and resilience, highlighting the tension between destruction and creation, survival and renewal.