Double Back

2022
Tissue paper and flashe on canvas
24 x 18 in

I’ve had a longstanding interest in indirect image-making, shallow picture planes, and trompe l’oeil illusionism. In this series, I began the painting by collaging a ground of tissue paper shapes onto the canvas. The paper is so thin it acts like a thin wash of paint. But, upon closer inspection, one can see tiny creases and folds that clue us into its physicality. This ever-so-slight relief breaks the illusion of the picture plane. Gravity and space are also constructed realities in the picture place. The only paint on the canvas is introduced in the form of a thick black line. The line behaves like an object, perched atop shapes and weaving in between forms. Lastly, the raw canvas is left exposed and we are left to grapple with the materiality of the textile while trying to reconcile its function as pictorial space.