Statement
In times of crisis we turn to the familiar for comfort. My paintings examine this preoccupation with nostalgia. In my investigation, I tread a thin line between saccharine sentimentality and cynicism. In found midcentury photographs, clichés like suburban cowboys appear as American kitsch, almost soothing in their repetition. And yet, through a contemporary lens, I consider the headlines stamped on a newspaper that shared a print date with this photo. What took place beyond the frame of this Kodak moment? Did this child of the 1960s practice duck-and-cover drills at school that day? What kind of person did they grow up to be?
I paint from candid snapshots that subtly reference the tradition of painting in their composition. Take for example the playtime western outlaw who alludes to neoclassical equestrian portraiture. I enlarge and idealize this carefully selected photo to imitate monumental heroic painting. I mix color to match the degraded film, parsing out cast shadows and flooded flash. The paintings are shaped with rounded corners to mimic 35 mm slides and further their own objecthood.
Decades collapse between the moment the photo was taken and the moment I discover it, shuffled among discarded keepsakes. In the act of painting, the image of a child playing dress-up becomes both familiar and alien. I obsess over the three square inches that contain someone else’s memory, but the truth of the image eludes me. They remain strangers. Painting grants me an intimate knowledge of the object, but denies me sincere understanding, much like nostalgia and memory. Memory flickers, even with many recollections, like a slide photo when held to the projector light.