Senior Thesis Series: 5646 Bailey Grant Road

Painting gives me the freedom to retell my story. I explore narrative in painting as a means to face personal struggles from my childhood head-on. My thesis evolved from the desire to depict the past with as much accuracy as possible, into the desire to convey a sense of both past and present in each work. Instead of merely empty rooms, the painting process demanded I open up; add, edit, and construct a number of elements that surprised me, one of which was the devil figure meant to represent my stepmother – to represent and reveal her true nature as I understand it now, no longer a confused, scared, and abused child. My painting process is a gradual, meaningful one. I begin research for the painting with charcoal drawings as a means to explore the composition and mood of my subject – in this instance, five bedrooms in the house I grew up in. The works of Patrick Caulfield (e.g., Trou Normand (1997), Fruit Display (1996)), Bob Thompson (e.g., The Struggle (1963)), and Zsofia Schweger (e.g., Sandorfalva, Hungary #1 (2016), Sandorfalva, Hungary #17 (2015)) influence my process. In looking at Caulfield’s work, I mull over his ability to balance areas of great detail alongside areas of large, vibrant color-shapes; Thompson’s work helps me to address the figural aspect in my own; Schweger’s memory painting œuvre gives me the courage to set aside – at least in part – my perfectionist tendencies, allowing me to insert the imperfections of memory throughout my works. For me, this project and these paintings have sparked a period of experimentation with materials, media, and subject matter that extends and heightens my exploration of narrative. I never dreamed it would be an essential tool of communicating a somehow ambivalent, yet clear, object, or a means of dictating the mood of the space within the confines of the canvas. Seeing the paintings now, with their unplanned additions, I can’t imagine them without those extra elements; they allow me to confront a deeply personal, emotional place. I can’t believe I was so closed off to the idea that with illustrating memory comes a certain freedom. A freedom to retell the story the way one feels it should be told.