ARTIST STATEMENT
My current work speaks to the universality of the cinematic experience, and looks to mid-twentieth century film, photojournalism, and other related forms of mass visual culture. We all have memories associated with the glamorous and dreamlike imagery that often accompanies cinema. For these reasons, I believe it is the most significant visual medium. I explore this facet of the past through large-scale painting in order to acknowledge the visual styles of this bygone but influential period in recent history.
Post-WWII audiences gathered to cinemas to escape from everyday life. Hollywood’s studio system cultivated values that projected the questionings, concerns, but most of all, the desires of the public. This postwar mentality bled into other forms of mass visual culture, such as advertising, fashion, and photojournalism. As a result, rigid ideas of one’s place and performance within society were widely disseminated. These strict boundaries of character have allowed this era to leave behind powerful visual legacies.
Having not lived during this period, I, like many others, have a tendency to romanticize it. Due to the often biased and devised language in mass visual culture, it is simple to select what best represents our own idealistic notions of the past. In response to this limited knowledge, I paint with a restricted palette of colours repeatedly found in my source material. Although the figures’ resonance may become heightened through the formal medium of paint, they are no longer a part of a moving narrative. As a result, they fulfill a fragment of a memory; a still image that is no longer a part of something greater, but instead, is left to be ambiguous and available for contemplation.
Through this process of reimagining, I work to celebrate this beloved era, as well as to reconsider its popular beliefs and romantic connotations.