summer in my head
Breathing and Panicking
2009
screen print
Foreground These are all screen prints. Individually, they've been in 12 juried exhibitions. This is the first time they've been assembled in a single exhibition. I used screen printing as a way of drawing with opaque color- basically, painting without really painting. Most of the images are harsh and overly complicated. In 2008 I felt the urge to push my images to unnecessary extremes, packing them with excessive detail. They represent a very stressful couple of years of my life. Isolation, panic attacks, lingering anxiety. A chaotic and confusing time. Presently, hard to relate to. "Werewolf I" was a conquering of some of those internal problems. Clarity of vision, less than ten colors (with a more muted palette), an edition of 4. It was a sign of things to come- a wanting to escape the messy, cluttered imagery (and ultimately screen printing). Being more direct has since been the goal that I strive for. Less is more. I'm reminded of an analogy that Greg Reuter gave about art performing like an athlete (trimming excess fat, keeping it lean).