Statement

Is "The American Dream" actually a source of happiness?

My oil paintings explore the motifs associated with the idealized goals of American culture, combining ordinary subjects from the everyday — cake, apple trees, and hats — with elements of surprise to provoke questions about the dominant narratives in American society.

These questions center on gender; the domestic roles are thrust upon women until they threaten to consume them. My figures turn that threat back. They consume the domestic so it cannot consume them, until nourishment and consumption blur into the same act. The familiar tips toward the uncanny: something to be escaped or eaten.

Gesturally painted objects rest on colliding blocks of saturated, matte color sinking back into the fields as readily as they sit on top of them. Visible drips and brushstrokes keep the surfaces raw and unsettled. The use and misuse of scale allows what could be comforting to be revealed as something stranger. The scale of the paintings relate back to the idea of homeownership and what would fit in an American home, a mid-size canvas.