Advisor: Jason Paradis

ONCOMING

I find inspiration in the roadkill I see on a near day-to-day basis. Mangled and torn open with their innards spilling out isn’t how we want to see an animal. This sight is being utilized as a symbol for my personal conflict of self-image and the feeling of insecurity concerning certain parts of myself being revealed. I’m aware of how morbid it is, but I find seeking a level of comfort in something that’s uncomfortable enlightening. The creation process in painting and printmaking has caused me to alter its appearance, digest it, rethink, and recreate. Each time the concept regarding my insecurities is revisited, it evolves and becomes more refined as I better understand it.

Idealization, contradiction, and acceptance are the themes that I’ve explored through the evolution of my work which reflect matters I’m handling in my personal journey. The title of this exhibition, ONCOMING, states the overall theme of inevitability. The transformations between each series of work were bound to occur considering the changes that have been established in my growth. I continue to push myself towards improvement by breaking down the conflicts that I’m faced with. This is a retrospective of the past two years of working with these ideas and getting to know myself in turn.

Title: Roadkill, Date: Fall 2021, Dimensions: 7” x 8”, Medium: Linoleum print

My first work of roadkill art to come to fruition is a linoleum print simply titled, Roadkill. The piece features a raccoon flat on its back with its limbs splayed out. Its abdomen is split down the center exposing its organs. Its eyes are replaced with X’s, a humorous motif in cartoons used to show that a character is dead. The print consists of two colors, black for the outlines and red for the organs and blood spill. This was achieved using two separate pieces of linoleum designated for each color.

Commuting nearly forty minutes from South Huntington to Stony Brook, roadkill is an inevitable sight that I have to deal with on a near daily basis. Initially repulsed by the visual, the imagery is rendered in a graphic style to create a humorous depiction of the subject. The process of making the print, which involves applying pressure to the matrix and paper by rolling it through a press, simulating the action of the animal being run over by a vehicle, also plays into the humor.

I became more interested in exploring roadkill as my subject matter and how the metaphorical aspect of it could be applied and further developed. I relate the undesirability of the roadkill to myself and the feeling of insecurity when certain parts of my personality and interests are revealed.

Following the creation of the initial print, I have taken closer notice of the roadkill I come across. I don’t photograph them because I don’t want the continuous reminder of their horrible condition. At the end of each commute, quick, gestural sketches are made from memory which I make selections from to flesh out into completed pieces. Each animal in my work isn’t one character. They’re separate individuals that I have seen in my travels and have made connections to in my sympathy towards them.

My first series of paintings, Spill It, focuses on the theme of idealization.

Code-switching between social groups was a problem I greatly struggled with and I was able to move away from this behavior over the past year. Being comfortable in my own skin was a rare experience that I could only have with a small percentage of people. My art has always been a reflection of myself and my interests so my portfolio displays that. There’s a blend of lighthearted, storybook-esque imagery rooted in childhood and works that explore more mature topics and questions concerning identity. The original purpose of these paintings was to bridge the gap between the two subjects. As I’ve developed my concepts and grown as a person with each series, I came to realize that this was not the be all and end all. I was putting on a funeral that no one was allowed to cry at. Wanting to take my concept further, I had to realize that idealization wasn’t the answer and I needed to push it in a different direction.

Each painting features one dead animal. The blood that spills from their wounds is replaced with objects that are more pleasant to look at. The opossum featured in Pastry Opossum is cake, frosting, and sprinkle filled and split into three slices. Garden of Guts features another opossum twisted and folded over itself. The entrails are transformed into the vines and flowers of a morning glory plant. The raccoon in Seam Ripper is bursting at the seams from their gut with plush stuffing and buttons. Sweet Stuff depicts another raccoon that lays mangled with their torso turned the opposite way from the positioning of their hips. A variety of candy pours out from the gash extending across their body.

Across all of the pieces, there’s an attempt to stay within a comfort zone with the absence of the undesirable aspects. Conforming to the mold and fulfilling the expectations of others for the sake of preserving a good public image was restraining my personal growth. Since my work reflects myself, that restraint was hindering its development as well. In order to move forward with my ideas, my approaches had to be rethought.

Further exploring my concepts, my second series of paintings, Spill It V2, focuses on the theme of contradiction.

Previously careful in my approaches to the subject matter, my decisions in these pieces display the risks I was afraid to take in the preceding body of work. The true, gorey nature of the scene is starting to be revealed, but parts of it are still obscured. The blood spill and internal organs are present. Vibrant, unnatural colors are used in place of the naturalistic colors of the innards in an effort to cushion the shock value. The animals are cuter with their rounder physical features and heart-shaped highlights in their eyes. The animals are alive as their bodies are being torn apart pulling it back into that uncanny territory. The backgrounds are a light purple with a centered quadrilateral that’s a light yellow. This is a callback to the first series of paintings on rectangular stretched canvases and its subjects existing on backgrounds that are purely yellow. The yellow shapes are distorted in reference to my efforts to break out of the previous routine and establishing something more refined in its place.

Instead of working on stretched canvases, I made large banners which range from three to six feet in height and width. Banners are typically used to spread messages or to display pride which I’m doing here as I continue to work with my concepts and gain confidence in discussing the feeling of insecurity. Not only did the size of my paintings increase, but so did the quantity. Overwhelming myself with the amount of pieces was an act of self-discipline to motivate myself to keep digging into my concepts. The complete series consists of seven paintings. Five were displayed at the exhibition.

Pushing my concepts even further, my third series of paintings, Spill It V3, focuses on the theme of acceptance.

When I started working on this series, there wasn’t a concrete plan for how it would develop and where it would end up. Considering the previous themes, idealization and contradiction, I knew I wanted it to continue to move forward. Unable to face the truth in Spill It and then obscuring it in Spill It V2, I wanted to come to terms with what was inevitable.

Our Island and Bright Eyes both depict deceased opossums. Their bodies are split into two halves and their innards pour out in between the segments. The vibrant colors that were used previously are running off of the organs and the true pinks and reds underneath are starting to be revealed. The light purple background is consistent with the previous series, but the light yellow forms are replaced with two parallel lines like lines on a road.

In both of the previous series, Spill It and Spill It V2, their themes were communicated by repeating the same concept across the works and the theme evolved once I moved on to the next series. Contrary to that, the theme in Spill It V3 is pushed forward between both pairs of paintings. I was going to hold back on this sudden shift because I wasn’t sure if I was capable of discussing true self and creating imagery that reflects that. After some thought and looking back at the works that were done, I was confident that I had a firm enough grasp on my concepts and intentions.

Fallen Angel and The Crawl get to the point that the animals are wounded and dying. The raccoons that each of these paintings depict shield and attempt to cover their injuries with their paws to no avail. The true colors of the organs and bloodshed fully exist. They’re no longer hidden or subtly hinted at like they were before. The true nature of the scene and every gross part of it is visible. The light purple background is the same here, but the light double yellow lines are wavy and distorted which further sets this pair aside from the other two paintings in this series.

Banners are utilized once again as my painting surface. I made them much larger this time to amplify my messages. The truth is shoved in the viewer’s face as well as my own. They are unavoidable. I can honestly say that I’m satisfied with the results. Whether my peers want to see it or not, I accept the imagery for what it is in all of its gross glory.

Oncoming is a triptych of lithographic prints. It features a deceased raccoon on a road under the cover of the night. The light is increasing from an oncoming vehicle which will inevitably strike the vulnerable animal again. Working from dark to light, I utilized the mezzotint technique to achieve the best results. The ink ground was scratched away and deletions were made in each stage on the same stone and image to increase the intensity of the highlights. Three versions of the first stage, each varying in ink density, were displayed in the exhibition.

Inevitability, the overall theme of my exhibition, was realized through this series of prints. Fate and change, often unwanted, are unavoidable. The evolution of my themes, idealization, contradiction, and acceptance, was guaranteed to occur as I matured and further understood them. This triptych weighs heavier than my previous works. A solemn narrative exists. The subject, who’s already deceased and gored, is destined to be torn open again by the suggested approaching vehicle. Lacking color and bold outlines, the subject depends on the thoughtfully arranged cross-hatched lines for definition and range of value. This is the funeral that I intend to make people cry at.

While my paintings and lithographs are inspired by and possess deeper meanings about my personal development and philosophies, my intaglio prints are directly rooted in specific memories. I’ve always had a strong memory and it worsens my anxieties at times because of how detailed the recall can be. Responding fearfully to negative experiences and establishing comfort zones is how I began working on my concepts in my first series of paintings. Through my intaglio prints, I make connections between grotesque scenes and certain memories in an attempt to cope with my ability to remember such events in great detail.

The opossum in Nugget Buddy was on Nesconset Hwy in front of the Burger King. It was on the shoulder, small leaves were scattered around it, and its entrails spilled out of its side and mouth.

This image was one of the first drawings that was created in planning my prints. At the time, I was figuring out the approach of how my images would be rendered. After stepping back, I thought about the idealization of the scene that was recreated. I was reminded of a friend and fellow artist that I went to high school with. We took the A.P. art class together and one of the assignments was a perspective drawing of a hallway in the building. I chose a location beside the windows and spent most of the given time to complete the project meticulously defining every line, especially around the window panes. During the critique, she told me “You make things look better than they seem. I want to go to that school.” Those words, “You make things look better than they seem.”, ring true here and throughout my body of work.

The raccoon in Memory was outside of my home in South Huntington. I faintly saw its outline in the headlights of my car before sunrise while packing to come to the studio.

One of my earliest memories is when my grandpa ran over a raccoon with his green Lincoln Town Car. I was no older than two at the time. My grandpa, my mom, and I were on our way home from visiting my grandma in the hospital. We were on Cold Spring Hills Rd in Huntington and it was after sunset. The inside of the car was dark. I remember the sound of it going through the wheel well, holding on to my plush animals, and my mom saying, “I think you just hit that raccoon.”

The rat in You Like Dead Things was at the end of the road I live on. It was flattened completely and its guts and blood spilled out around it.

I’m not easily grossed out so when there’s a deceased animal in our yard my mom will say to me, “You like dead things.”, as a way to ask me to help clean it up. This began years before I started making art of dead animals. Earlier this year, my mom and I were on our way home from an errand, she pulled over at the end of the road, and she told me to look between the lanes where the rat was. She said that she passed it earlier that day without me and she was worried it would’ve been cleaned up before I got the chance to see it. Living with my parents, they see most of the work I’m creating. The large pieces especially because of how much space they take up on my walls. They have their reservations, but sometimes they play along with the humorous aspect of it.

Title: Untitled, Date: Spring 2022, Dimensions: 10” x 8”, Medium: Acrylic on canvas board

Between working on the larger series, several experimental pieces were created. Although they stand apart from the complex bodies of work, the different approaches to the themes and concepts aided the development of my ideas.

Untitled was created as a test before I began working on my first series of paintings, Spill It. The concept of idealization represented through the substitution of gore with objects was already in place. I was trying to figure out how the imagery would be rendered. The stylization was ultimately taken in a different direction from what was done with the muted colors and blended brushstrokes that were used here. Instead, the imagery became graphic with the use of flat colors and bold outlines. This is where the complementary colors, yellow and purple, were established as a consistent element to be used throughout my paintings. The range of values that could be achieved using purple replaces the dark, neutral colored markings on the animals and the yellow is reminiscent of vehicle headlights and lines on a road which is incorporated into the backgrounds.

Be Kind and Rewind was created after the completion of the first series of paintings in the planning phase for the second series of paintings. The initial idea was to continue using objects in place of the gore. The idea was ultimately scrapped because I wanted to progress with the concept instead of repeating it. The canvas is made up of eight VHS tapes arranged around each other in different orientations. Each one was thoughtfully selected based on the content they contain which are television shows and movies that I enjoyed during my childhood. Considering the title of the broken cassette, “Way Cool Creepy Crawlies”, I thought it was clever to have the tape guts pour out that specific one. The theme of contradiction is apparent with the gross entrails being presented in a “way cool” format.

While working on my second series of paintings, Spill It V2, which are painted on banners, I continued to explore working on different surfaces. Tie-dye and painting are combined on cotton fabric. An opossum is featured with its abdomen torn open and brightly colored organs exposed. The bulls-eye pattern is used to create a focal point where the subject’s wound and innards are unraveling.

Content Warning was an unexpected addition to my body of work. While pushing the graphic nature in my third series of paintings, Spill It V3, I envisioned a piece rendered more realistically than what was already being created. I got as close as I could to actual roadkill by making a replica of a dead opossum. To be honest, I initially didn’t take the piece seriously. I joked around with it and moved it between studios to see how many people I could scare. Placing it beside my paintings and seeing their contrasts, I believe it makes an effective anchor point that ties the whole back to reality. The sculpture was located at the entrance of the exhibiting space which frightened unsuspecting viewers. Stated by its title, it served as a content warning for the exhibition.

Throughout the development of the body of work, I have pushed myself and been able to confront my insecurities. Idealizing my conflicts, not completely coming to terms with my feelings, contradicting myself, and inevitably finding acceptance are stages that were explored during this journey. I don’t believe that the concept is complete. I want to continue investigating parts of myself and further understand the reasons for my anxieties. There’s a cycle with the birth, the realization, of an idea and its death, the shift to a different state of being. The death of the roadkill, as I interpret it in my work, isn’t literal. It’s representative of the end of one idea and the transition to another.