Solo Show: THE (DIS)COMFORT OF HOME
My solo show is now on view until December 10th at the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) in the Open Door Gallery. It is featured in the Higgins Educational Wing of WAM.
Opening reception on October 24th, from 4:30pm – 7pm, with an Artist talk at 5:15. Refreshments will be provided.
55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609
For accessibility, use the Landcaster St. entrance for an elevator up to the second floor.
Exhibition Statement
These paintings memorialize and honor the small moments when my sick body was strong. At the age of twelve, I began experiencing debilitating pain episodes that often left me bed-bound. Eventually being diagnosed with a rare chronic illness, I proceeded to undergo over thirty hospitalizations, procedures, and surgeries with no relief. My body felt unsafe and foreign to me. I no longer recognized the person I saw in the mirror and the home that once comforted me took on an oppressive nature. During these dark times, I began to paint and never stopped.
The canvas became my solace – a place to be brutally honest without sugarcoating my experiences for the comfort of others. Paint gave me the language to describe what words failed to. The paintings are autobiographical, capturing feelings and memories. I work in a very physical way — throwing, globbing, scraping, brushing, and dripping paint onto the canvas until bodies emerge that feel vulnerable, raw, and damaged. The figures lie somewhere outside of reality, between evaporating and materializing. By taking moments I wanted to be small and making them large, I have painted my invisible illness into striking visibility, celebrating the body despite its discomfort.”