STATEMENT OF WORK

I make art about the intertwined histories of pharmaceuticals and color. My pointillist, color-saturated paintings, sculptures, and videos, infused with actual pharmaceuticals and chemicals, utilize imagery from art history and advertising to explore the ecstasy and toxicity of our present moment. 

The "pharmakon," a Greek term that simultaneously means cure, poison, and paint, and is the origin of the English words "pharmaceutical" and "toxic," is a concept that centers the work. Each molecule of pigment or drug, be it pleasurably mind-altering, physically poisonous, or both, contains the entire history of its invention, production, marketing, and consumption.

Most recently focusing on painting, I work from images taken from pharmaceutical advertising that bear an uncanny reference to art historical works, particularly from the Impressionist period, which was contemporaneous with the rise of synthetic chemistry. These images of idealized leisure form potent means of understanding representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. 

I transform these advertisements into vibrant paintings of figures in landscapes and blasts of abstract patterns. Working on synthetic substrates such as Kevlar ballistic fabric and polyester canvas, each dot, made with custom tools, is a particular pill's exact size and shape. Each oval is the color that corresponds to the branding of that pharmaceutical, an actual sample of which is mixed into the paint. Different combinations of color and drugs create vibrant contrasts visually and conceptually, such as juxtaposing painkillers with opioid blockers. 

I am currently working on new works that "dissolve" the figure into the background and collapse the previously defined spaces of representational and non-representational painting that I have been working in. In addition, I am exploring ways to create a more immersive, installation-like environment to showcase the work, utilizing wallpaper and medical settings.