This body of work attempts to think of realism nontraditionally, not constrained by fixed models of “reality” (in art, western perspective or naturalism, for example), instead adapting to articulate the coexistence of different times, places, and subjectivities. Underlying is my belief that painting should move toward “feeling real” as described by Maggie Nelson in The Argonauts: a “primary sensation of aliveness… which makes spontaneous gesture possible.” This is to say, realism in this context is more of a verb than a noun, a protean activity. Its accuracy is measured by the specific, embodied experience of the viewer, not by preset paradigms of the real.
“Swimmer,” which was painted after hearing a friend’s story of visiting a swimming hole, locates its short hand at FELT—its emotion being its central concern: the feeling of summer, leisure, swimming, being in nature, being in love; its long hand points to TIME, the painting having come from a watercolor sketch made months ago, and describing an experience that is transitory, already past.
