ARTIST STATEMENT
Through a combination of poured paint backgrounds and carefully rendered portrait/figure foregrounds, I explore opposition – created in order to discover a balance between chance and choice, between the uncontrollable and the controllable. Â
For a background palette, I pour paint into a cup then onto the canvas. Different colors, shapes, and patterns flow out every time, finding the fine line between control and letting go. Then I choose a subject to complement or oppose the flowing background. I layer portraits and figures, over these backgrounds. Unrecognizable faces that are my own look back at me.
Through simplified palettes, monochromatic and analogous colors, I use the same or similar iconography, symbols, and specific styles to connect one piece to the other. Red becomes an overarching color, a single color intended to connect my art and the viewer. Red is all around us and in our very veins. I craft circles reminiscent of halos, cradling, crossing, cutting the figures.
Layers upon layers, layers of paint, layers of the body, layers of our own mind. I work to form what can’t be put into words, to explain the unknown, see inside, deep within, through only the clues of the surface. I explore the emotions and experiences that we push down into a sort of void. The things never dealt with, the feelings never expressed. The pain and confusion placed carefully into a box, set on a shelf for later exploration.
RESUME
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Education
2021 BFA Viisual Art, Concentration in Studio Painting minor in Graphic Design,
Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
2018 Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea (Summer Session)
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Honors/Awards
2020-17 President’s List: Spring/Fall 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Fall 2017
2019-18 Dean’s List: Fall 2019, Fall 2018
2018 National Society of Leadership
2017 Best Foundations Works, Student Juried Show, University Art Gallery, Ivan Wilson FAC,
Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, Juror: Meghan Pohlod
Silver Key Scholastic Art & Writing Award
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Exhibition Record
*Solo show
2021 *The Pandemic Continues, The Cube, Ivan Wilson, Fine Arts Center, Western Kentucky
University, Bowling Green, KY
2020 *COVID Twoo, The Cube, Ivan Wilson, Fine Arts Center, Western Kentucky University,
Bowling Green, KY
*COVID 19, The Cube, Ivan Wilson, Fine Arts Center, Western Kentucky University,
Bowling Green, KY
2019 Response WKU & Murray State, The Cube, Ivan Wilson, Fine Arts Center, Western
Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
2017 Student Juried Show, University Art Gallery, Ivan Wilson, Fine Arts Center, Western
Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
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Professional Experience
Fall 2017- Teaching Assistant, Art Matters Studio, Bowling Green, KY
Spring 2018 Taught after-school art lessons to elementary students.
2017-2021 Front of House, Yuki Japanese, Bowling Green, KY
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Boards and Clubs
2017-2021 CRU
Band Member
2017-2021 The Living Hope College Ministry
Band Member
2017-2021 Living Hope Local Impact Ministry Board
Board Member: Oversaw the budgets and finances of the Local Impact Ministry