Lath & Key
Date
2022-05
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Abstract
My work, acrylic paintings on varied concrete surfaces, deals in the language of pattern
and reproduction. These patterns come from decorative interior sources, such as mid-century fabrics or 20th century woodblock-printed wallpapers. Drawing inspiration from the motifs and politics of the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as the history of appropriation and reproduction since the invention of photography, I use these motifs to speak to experiences of home. Home, an expansive term so regularly described as transcending the physical, is something on which I aim to reach my own conclusions through material exploration, domestic motifs, and the delicate reproduction of pattern with my own hand. These conclusions are not finite but are personal, reflecting my own experiences of both great joy and great pain in childhood as well as a universal desire to create a home where joy grows larger than pain. This emotional practice of building home as well as my physical practice of painting relies on contrast. Delicate, historically expensive patterns combine with the material significance of concrete, wire, wood, and styrofoam to elicit contradiction and fragility among memories of home and safety. These contradictions extend beyond the visible into the history of material and motif, from the contradictory nature of William Morris’ desire to create quality goods priced for working people, to a Western desire to subjugate nature projecting its idealized form into Roman frescos or Toile fabrics or Medieval courtly tapestries or the same 19th century wallpapers I am
drawn too. Moreover my own tastes and desire to make these images my own reeks of
bourgeois ideals rooted in a compulsion towards collecting. This collection speaks to the homes I saw on television as a child that lacked exposed light fixtures and unfinished wood framing. That showed care in every corner, with all the seams sealed up and the underbelly, the lath and key, the fear in the night hidden by molding and good lighting without a water stain or a chipped floor tile or a chipped tooth in sight. We strive for joy manifested in the physical home around us, regardless of the fact that sometimes it is only wallpapering over the broken concrete underneath.
Description
Thesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY.
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Keywords
MFA thesis, Acrylic painting, Concrete art, Woodcuts