Advisor: Jason Paradis

In my past work, I reconstructed my experiences and perceptions with success by balancing detailed art styles with looser styles and creating surreal spaces. I often linked rigid painting techniques with perfectionism and extrinsic motivation and linked expressive painting techniques with intrinsic motivation. I still hold onto rigorous and tight ways of painting, however with a more imaginative approach, I reclaim this work ethic and transform it into something more therapeutic and purposeful. Recently, I had a growing urge to fill up canvases with simple yet repetitive patterns because I knew it would be meditative. This would quiet my racing thoughts about what I need to work on. Although I know I have grown more self-disciplined and self-aware as a student and artist, there is always still a nagging thought that focusing on one area of my life would cause me to neglect something else. As I reflected on my drive for self-improvement and a balance of skills, I connected these drives to yard work and chores. Patterns in my work would inevitably be a path for me to calm myself but also to investigate the neverending cycle of keeping a house clean.

My self-worth is tied to how well I keep up with my chores. It can get very overwhelming when it feels like there’s always something that I need to finish. Despite going home to reset my body and mind every night, the more I try to succeed as an artist, the more hazardous my room gets. Then, the more I neglect the maintenance of my house, the farther I feel like I am from home. Routine Restoration stems from a need to acknowledge and respect what is at the backbone of my life and my family’s lives–home. My home should be shown at all stages of restoration, of upkeep and mess and everything in between, because this reflects the different stages and intricacies of my family’s well-being.

The paintings in Routine Restoration explore the repetitive nature of the upkeep at my family’s home. Although my paintings highlight the finished results of yard work and chores, they also hint at the overgrowth and disorder that always return. The finished upkeep feels tidy and calm, but the inevitable mess can be a chilling reminder. Upkeep and mess intertwine with each other in a cyclic restoration system. My paintings reconstruct the different phases of restoration to reveal the overlooked tedious physical and mental labor that goes into restoration. Still, my paintings do not disparage the repetitiveness of upkeep or the uncontrollability of the mess. I connect this repetition and uncontrollability to my artmaking process so that as I paint, I can relive and remember everything that happens at my family’s home. The titles in this body of work are from passing thoughts that I have with different chores. These titles have little to do with attaching meaning to my paintings. Instead, they attach open-ended backstories that hint at my and my family’s lifestyles.

In terms of painting style and composition, Routine Restoration organizes repetitive forms together to transform them into entities of chores that can live on canvases. Up close, many of the forms are smooth and minimized, but other forms stand out by being more detailed. From afar, different forms of nature and household objects interact with each other in unique non-realistic spaces. The resulting paintings come alive, manifesting the nuances of home restoration and, by extension, the subtleties of how my family and I come to terms with both home and personal restoration.

I began my series with less personalized works. My painting’s subject of yardwork alludes to the superficiality of outside appearances. The balance in the patterns evokes relaxation, but the balance at first feels pointless. I often get caught up in organizing a specific area in my room to make it look pleasant rather than focusing on the bigger picture of the rest of my messy room. The subject of nature also illustrates the uncontrollable cycle of life and death, and the stages in between.

Title: Impatiens are so low-maintenance, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 32” x 32”, Medium: Oil on canvas

Impatiens are so low-maintenace focuses on the ephemeral nature of plant growth that is frustrating to new gardeners. The red flowers are on the brink of expanding their shimmering pattern despite a dark unknown space of dirt and the confinement of the canvas. Although shade-loving impatiens can quickly spread out after only planting a few of them, they can vanish just as fast when a disease or the cold hits them. As fast as habits can be built, they can be destroyed, so they must be constantly paid attention to.

Title: The lawnmower moves too fast for me, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 32” x 32”, Medium: Oil and paintbrush bristles on canvas

The lawnmower moves too fast for me illustrates the filth involved with maintaining a clean-cut lawn. Although the grass is smooth and even, the white fence has been abstracted to the point where its only purpose is to hold the grass’s guts and the weedwhacker’s gouges. The pattern of the growing grass abruptly ends on the sides of the canvas, recalling how abruptly this chore comes to a halt when the summer ends.

The following two works traverse inside but still are not overly personal. My bedroom is the last room that still has carpet has a similar clean versus dirty contrast as The lawnmower moves too fast for me. Meanwhile, I have to empty the drying rack first is more open-ended, having only indirect implications of mess.

My bedroom is the last room that still has carpet contrasts a minimalistic dark floor with textured bright dog fur pushed to the sides of the canvas. The fact that I still have carpet suggests that there is a lot hidden inside it because it is so much harder to deep clean than a wood floor. However, dog fur hides somewhere on the wood floor even after thorough sweeping. This brings me to question if there s anything else like dirt or crumbs left after cleaning, but I just cannot see.

Title: I have to empty the drying rack first, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 36” x 24”, Medium: Acrylic medium and oil on canvas

In I have to empty the drying rack first I play with form and composition by arranging cups and plates by levels of saturation and contrast in a drying rack. The clear containers and bowls that float around halt the organization of the plates and cups. There are also curved textures, acknowledging the presence of more wet dishes in the future. Once the drying rack becomes full, its composition becomes identical to that of a sink full of dishes. The red knife evokes a dread that something might fall out of the rack and break at any moment.

The last paintings of my bedroom in this series mark a hopeful conclusion to the series but do not mark an end to my artmaking or coping with the constant change at home. The following paintings still use subjects of chores involving constraint maintenance, but the dreadful atmosphere is gone.

Title: I use a lot of blankets so at least one stays on me, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 36” x 36”, Medium: Acrylic medium and oil on canvas

In I use a lot of blankets so at least one stays on me, I finally get to use the type of patterns I wanted at the beginning of my journey. I use one small paintbrush to paint identical lines without regard to the shape of the underlying sheet, pillowcase, and blankets. Once the patterns are complete, they become something grander, almost mystical. They push me to make my bed regularly so I can transform my bed into a serene place. The pattern ignores the shape of the pillow and blankets caused by the impression of my body sleeping there for years. Although this shape can be a sign of the bed getting messy, this shape is a much stronger sign that no matter how well I make my bed and flatten my blankets, my bed still remembers me and is intrinsically the same bed that I hold close to my heart. Also, the impressionistic flowers and sectioned-out fabric of the quilt recall a traditional appreciation for spontaneous beauty created by skilled painters and craftspeople. It also alludes to the domestic skills learned over generations that help mend households together.

Title: File-folding my clothes lets me see everything, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 11” x 14” each, Medium: Oil on canvas

File-folding my clothes lets me see everything is a retrospective painting where I look down into my dresser drawers, look in at myself, and look back in time. I follow an organization system that lets me take inventory of everything. As I put clothes away, I remember what I wore and did over the past week. Looking at the untouched clothes, I recognize it is time to give some stuff away to accommodate new clothes. The dresser is organized, but not perfect or aggressively put together, especially since many of the clothes are different sizes. It can always be reopened and edited.

The dresser drawers signify my closure and acceptance of home and personal restoration. Closing the drawers marks an end to worrying about balancing everything and getting everything right on the first try. It marks the embracing of all the work I have done. Just like how drawers can be reopened and edited, there are always chances to return and add to what I have done.

My paintings in Routine Restoration unveil everything that goes into constantly maintaining my house and shed hints at my and my family’s personalities involving work and chores. My body of work begins with illustrating constant routine and overwhelmingness and ends with open-mindedness, embracing the inevitable. The initial urge to paint patterns may have been to calm me, but in hindsight, it was also an outlet to relive chores to examine and build a closer relationship with my house and family.

Although less focused on yard work and chores, the following paintings and prints expand upon and explore themes of home and memory. These works focus on the contrasting qualities of familial architecture and furniture from the past, present, and future. In a self-driven journey through time, I use these works to investigate how objects from different eras can shape or reveal one’s character.

These next paintings are composed primarily of oil paint, on a diverse selection of found wood ranging from carpentry scraps to shipping container walls. I often use textured gel mediums, wood shards, screws, and metal braces of the shipping container to enhance physical texture. Compositionally, these paintings have objects and scenes abstractly arranged across their wood substrates with little regard for nature or gravity. Instead of highlighting qualitative features, I highlight the objects’ objectness by paying attention to their shape, surface texture, and physical function. The past relics look old and dirty while the renovations or modern objects appear plastic or superficial. At some points, the line between the past and the future is blurred because one’s conception of the past may begin where someone else still conceptualizes modernity. This all transforms these paintings into nostalgic yet imaginative worlds of my childhood and home.

eat on me, sleep on me, off me is a triptych investigating the purpose of downtime and giving appreciation to my family’s recliner for safekeeping buried memories. Downtime is the resting period when we recharge our physical and mental energy. It lies in between and pieces together the more active periods of our lives. However, as I have become more self-driven and fast-paced, more important things get in the way of spending and remembering my downtime. As my family and I have spent years relaxing on our recliner, we left it with physical impressions. Inside the creases of its worn-down leather, the recliner keeps us a record of all the times we ate, slept, and found comfort in it. eat on me, sleep on me, off me transports me backward, forward, and in between time to a sacred place integral to my personal development.

Title: Outside, Date: 2022, Dimensions: 22” x 28”, Medium: Mezzotint and crayon on stone lithograph

As one of the first works that I have created in this show, Outside marks my initial pondering on how I can personally connect and reconnect to the objective forms of nature and architecture. Outside depicts growing bubbly clouds behind stone windows from my grandmother’s house far away in Nicaragua. As I developed my image, the clouds grew into a hypnotic swirl against the black background. The windows also became more detailed yet stylized. In Outside, I explore how I can make objective and realistic elements subjective or complex. The semi-realistic non-personal imagery of nature is combined with the stylized personal imagery of architecture that I have lost touch with. My image feels distant and meditative at the same time.

Title: Dream Machine, Date: 2023, Dimensions: 12” x 11.75”, Medium: Acrylic medium and acrylic on plywood and canvas

Dream Machine is the last piece that I completed for my show. Simultaneously, it highlights and abstracts a view of the shower tiles I stare at every night. Here, I get lost in thought as I plan for the future. The longer I think, the more my view becomes murky and abstracted. The tiles themselves, modified by the rough texture of the plywood substrate, the transparency of the paint, and the flimsiness of the canvas, move forward and backward in space. At the same time, the textured and bright white grout pops out. The water droplets hint at wetness without taking away from the matte texture of the rest of the painting. Similarly to Outside, although a bit hazy, this painting still provides space to imagine.