Work > Neither Here Nor There

Moving Through
Mixed Media on board
varying dimensions
2021
The Hop In:  View #3
Collage, oil on board
20" x 24"
2021
The Hop In:  View #2
Collage, oil on board
12" x 18"
2021
The Hop In:  View #1
Collage, oil on board
12" x 18"
2021
This Humble House
Collage, oil on board
12" x 12"
2021
We Carry It With Us
Collage, oil on board
48" x 36
2021
The Virtues of Shelter:  View #2
Collage, oil on board
18" x 24"
2021
What Fortitude Did It Once Possess
Collage, oil on board
11" x 14"
2021
A Notion of Home
Collage, oil on board
14" x 11"
2021
Lacking Resistance
Collage, oil on board
14" x 11"
2021
Rooted
Collage, oil on board
14" x 11"
2021
Dream House
Collage, oil on board
12" x 12"
2021
Intimate Geometry
Collage, oil on board
20" x 16"
2021
Illusions of Stability
Collage, oil on board
24" x 20"
2021
Await
Collage, oil on board
16" x 20"
2021
Sitting with Impermanence
Collage, oil on board
20" x 16"
2021
XXL
Collage, oil on board
16" x 20"
2021
The Virtues of Shelter
Collage, oil on board
36" x 36"
2021
Dreams Are More Powerful Than Thoughts
Collage, oil on board
60" x 48"
2021

The images used in my most recent work titled “Neither Here nor There”, were gathered and decided upon long before the beginning of the pandemic. However, the process of painting the work began once we were already in lock down and in the thick of it. It has been thought-provoking to reflect on how the impact of my experience during Covid shifted my viewpoint and ideas of what the work represented and how much more connected and personal it felt because of when it was created. My original intention was to paint these boarded up homes that were destined to be demolished, as if they were final portraits, to memorialize their existence, and pay homage to the memories they held while inhabited. These structures were in a place of transition, waiting in limbo, neither here nor there.

I am curious about the specific virtues a shelter can hold, and wonder how the meaning and purpose of a structure shifts when its original intent is no longer relevant? What remains? What secret memories, good and bad, happy and sad, do they hold within their walls? Inhabited spaces bear the essence of a “notion of home”. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard describes the house as an “imagined vertical being. It rises upward. It differentiates itself in terms of its verticality. It is one of the appeals to our consciousness of verticality. A house is imagined as a concentrated being. It appeals to our consciousness of centrality.”
But what does the uninhabited space bear the essence of-the absence of presence or the presence of absence? These once occupied homes, now vacant spaces, are only illusions of stability. They are waiting. Waiting for a change in their circumstances to occur, of which they have absolutely no control. In the middle of March, I too had to wait. The entire world had to wait.

I began to consider how difficult it is to simply wait. To sit with change is an extremely uncomfortable place to be. And to sit with change that one has no control over, no say in the matter, with no specific end date in sight, is extraordinarily challenging. Feelings of uncertainty, instability, insecurity, sadness, boredom, helplessness, impatience, and fear were just a few of my daily emotions. But there were also many moments of noticing beauty in the mundane, thankfulness for my friends, family and health, and a profound appreciation for my circumstances. The imagery of the work stayed the same, but personally, there is now something extra present in the work. There is an additional awareness of what it means to wait, to sit with change, and perhaps also, a tangible sentiment of hopefulness for what the possibilities of change can bring once the waiting is over.