Palindromic Repeats at MAINSITE Contemporary Art
I have to extend a big thank you to MAINSITE Contemporary Art, the Norman Arts Council, and Erin Gavaghan for hosting my MFA Exhibition. The gallery is a wonderful space in the center of Norman, Oklahoma and the opening was part of the city’s 2nd Friday Art Walk, the first held since before the pandemic began. It was wonderful to see so many faces and speak with all kinds of people about this series of work. The show is on view from April 8th through April 23rd.
Palindromic Repeats
This body of work examines the nature of progress using visual forms that dance between figuration and abstraction. Subjects that are broadly associated with scientific invention, human intention, and anthropogenic calamities create the foundation of these image making explorations. In prints, drawings, sculptures and paintings, advances in human knowledge are recorded and transformed into contemporary signs. By showing manifestations of human ambition outcomes and implications for contemporary society are revealed.
The title for this project is derived from the gene editing technology CRISPR, which is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. I’ve come to think of Palindromic Repeats as a way of describing human activity in the contemporary world. It relates too patterns visible in the way progress unfolds and how humankind utilizes innovation. New ideas and discoveries move us forward and backwards in repeating cycles, often with the same ethical conundrums present in each new iteration.
In parallel to the examination of societal development this project engages new ways of expanding the tradition of painting. It considers methods of constructing inventive surfaces, utilizes emerging technologies, and considers what it means to paint today. This approach to contemporary painting processes mirrors, in many respects, the content that it depicts. Both simultaneously explore repeating cycles that occur in the relationship between the past and present. My intention is to make visible attestations of our contemporary world through visual language and aesthetic allurer.
