Artist Statement for Cruel Harvest:
My series of paintings is called “Cruel Harvest”. The theme Harvest Time is ripe with opportunities for reflection. In creating these paintings, it became a time that represents a sad but necessary part of moving through the world— harvesting and processing the legacies that make us human.
I focused first on relationships close to the heart, love, and mainly relationships that never worked. You will see this in the two “Divided Love” paintings. Scarecrows are unattainable, otherworldly, humanlike figures that can’t reciprocate love, and are created solely to repel. I played with this idea. One could interpret the human on the ground as being cast aside, or in the painful throws of being rejected, tortured, or even dying. The narrative becomes the viewer’s job to interpret and put together the figures relationship.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about our relationships to each other as a society. In the last few years, watching systemic racially motivated violence come to harvest from the previous years of tension, deeply saddened me. I imagined what I would have to say to my eight-year-old son if he were black. How would I keep him safe? How would I explain—how would I justify— that the rules are different, just because of the color of your skin? Thinking about these difficult human conflicts inspired my painting Ascension.
The next relationship that correlated with harvest was the relationship to food and the people who harvest much of our food in America. In the series “migrant labor” I focused on the backbreaking work of harvesting. I accentuated the arch of the backs in all the figures and elongated the figures arms to emphasize the work of harvesting. I used a fairly dark but vibrant palette to create the mood.
I surprised myself in this series. Looking back, I would not have imagined that unrequited love, systemic racism, food, and migrant labor would have a cohesive through line. But I feel that I’ve only scratched the surface of possibilities in examining our relationships to what it means to harvest.
Thank you
My series of paintings is called “Cruel Harvest”. The theme Harvest Time is ripe with opportunities for reflection. In creating these paintings, it became a time that represents a sad but necessary part of moving through the world— harvesting and processing the legacies that make us human.
I focused first on relationships close to the heart, love, and mainly relationships that never worked. You will see this in the two “Divided Love” paintings. Scarecrows are unattainable, otherworldly, humanlike figures that can’t reciprocate love, and are created solely to repel. I played with this idea. One could interpret the human on the ground as being cast aside, or in the painful throws of being rejected, tortured, or even dying. The narrative becomes the viewer’s job to interpret and put together the figures relationship.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about our relationships to each other as a society. In the last few years, watching systemic racially motivated violence come to harvest from the previous years of tension, deeply saddened me. I imagined what I would have to say to my eight-year-old son if he were black. How would I keep him safe? How would I explain—how would I justify— that the rules are different, just because of the color of your skin? Thinking about these difficult human conflicts inspired my painting Ascension.
The next relationship that correlated with harvest was the relationship to food and the people who harvest much of our food in America. In the series “migrant labor” I focused on the backbreaking work of harvesting. I accentuated the arch of the backs in all the figures and elongated the figures arms to emphasize the work of harvesting. I used a fairly dark but vibrant palette to create the mood.
I surprised myself in this series. Looking back, I would not have imagined that unrequited love, systemic racism, food, and migrant labor would have a cohesive through line. But I feel that I’ve only scratched the surface of possibilities in examining our relationships to what it means to harvest.
Thank you