Skin

Flesh is fascinating. It is a reactive, elastic-like, and reflective tissue which serves as a covering, and it is beautiful. I aim to make this beautiful “occurrence” apparent in my paintings. The dermis has a reflective nature, and when it is pressed against itself the reflections change color. This change in color also occurs when pressure is applied to the skin which leads to a shift in the distribution of blood. The various ways that light hits skin reveal its opaque or translucent nature. My paintings are calculated to capture a likeness of these color and texture moments of flesh in an array of paint application and material studies.

As I paint, I watch the intricacies of skin unfold before me as an event. I venture into replicating this visual occurrence by exploring a variety of mediums in oil paint, fabric, latex, silicone, and etc. This investigation has led me to various conclusions about the biological purpose of the dermis, in that it is nothing more than an object that covers the living. However, in our Western culture there is often much attention given to body image, as if our outer layer reflects who we are inside. In my paintings I reject this notion by portraying flesh as an object and removing it of all that is reminiscent of what is living inside of it.

When reflecting on my earlier work, I displayed a conventionally beautiful female in familiar poses. I would present the body in its full form, nude, and sexually graphic in order to shock my audience. My newest work transitions away from this form of representation and into abstraction of the body. I now reveal edited and close-up views of skin, leaving the question of what body part is actually being portrayed. By cropping the body in a way that forces ambiguity, I am still able paint a subject that I love while removing it from its all too familiar associations.