Taping the World Back Together

The inspiration for this series of paintings emanates from an experience the artist had as a child. The description can be found below. "Taping the World Back Together" is the first work in a series of collage paintings called Structures. The subjects in this series have no obvious background or purpose, and the collage shapes seem to appear out of nowhere. But once we consider that these works are based on an emotional experience of losing a loved one as a child, we begin to see the shapes as something very different. In "Taping the World Back Together", the artist uses paper collage to depict a world, struggling to keep everything together after loss. It’s a fragmented world barely held together by threads. Although these shapes appear to be still, we are seeing a snapshot at a moment of crisis. The contrasting, bright colors are the artists attempt to convey a sense of optimism, despite being suspended over impending darkness; the nothingness that awaits. From the artist: On the origin of "Structures": When I was 9 years old, I had a brother who died at birth. I still have flashes of different memories from that time, like my mother being really sick or the haunting looks of fear on both my parent’s faces during pregnancy. But the most painful memory is sitting at the back of a dark room at the funeral home, watching my parents cry as they kneeled in front of the smallest coffin you'll ever see. Besides the strange, orange sliver of sunlight barely shining in the window, we were the only ones in the room. Later in life, I realized that I have a recurring nightmare about that experience. It's always the same story: I am standing in front of a house, too frightened to enter. I can feel the presence of something inside that cannot be seen. When I eventually enter the house, I taunt the spirit, challenging it to react to my thoughts about it. Then I yell angrily that it should prove it’s alive by moving various objects and slamming doors. The spirit always responds. The longer I'm there, the angrier it gets. Soon objects are flying everywhere as I rush for the door, narrowly making it out of the house in a total panic. I have this dream once every few years still. It’s always a dark setting, full of unique shapes, dampened colors and weird still-lives set up around the house. The visuals portray an immense sadness and it’s always the exact same lighting as the room at that funeral home (which is oddly like the copy of The Allegory of Painting by Vermeer that always hung in our dining room). But what I find most striking about these dreams now is the incredible amount of energy I feel in them. Yes, there is fear and anger. And my perspective on the meaning of this dream, while ever-changing, is still uncertain. But the energy that quickly explodes onto the scene is so powerful and inspiring that I can't help but believe it forges a meaningful connection with something I can feel, but cannot explain.