physicality

This thesis looks at the struggle towards understanding for myself what it means to be man, has been the crux of my work for the last few years. Looking at both the interior and exterior factors that influence and effect identity formation has been key to my own understanding. Examining the internal restraint and external constraint that influenced those facets during my formative years, have been helpful in understanding how I interpret my own gender and sexuality today. Using a myriad of research strategies and an ever-expanding grasp of mediums and materials, I have begun to map and explore the terrain of masculinity as I see it and experience it. While at times personal and private, my works strives to ride the line of how much detail to report and express, as I chart the terrain in-line with my own ever evolving discovery and understanding.

My work consists of a set of paintings that take on aspects of sculpture, creating an environment that pivots, spatially, around the various notions and experimental possibilities of painting. This strategy blends a physicality—rooted in the immediate act of painting—with an immersive environment established by the arena of painting. The result is an attempt to let you 'on the field.' Through the use of plastic substrates and projected light, I create spaces that change viewers into participants; moments that redirect paintings back to their original event. I utilize the draw found in shiny, colorful objects, to set up a space that promotes a blending of the physicality of painting and the viewer's awareness of their visual fixation. My projected paint marks layer over a space. See the color filtering through translucent sheets, simultaneously displaying and distorting the layer of marks, breaking—here and there—the integrity of traditional rectilinear frames. In the end, by placing emphasis on the viewer's positional variability, I intend to revive the movement framed within the painting. This thesis is a document designed to move me towards a newfound understanding of spatial perception when concerning a viewer's interaction with an art object.