Poor Housekeeping: MFA Thesis Exhibition 2024
03.09.2024 - 04.13.2024
Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Stony Brook University
Sedimentary, 2024, 12ft x 47ft, wall paint, paper, graphite, acrylic, mud
My art practice is a living archive of past and present selves, filtered through memories of childhood summers spent on the shores of New Jersey. I focus predominantly on the themes of absence and presence as they relate to my metaphorical states and physical places of being. My work is purposefully open in a way which offers viewers the ability to relate to these experiences of childhood wonderment of observing the natural world that evolves into adult understanding of the greater lessons that reside in these memories. I develop my drawings and works intuitively, allowing my memo- ries and feelings to drive my imagery.
For my thesis work, I have created two large-scale installations that utilize the many symbols, layers, and collections that allow me to digest such change.
I grew up spending my summers on the water in South Jersey watching permanent docks be replaced after being destroyed by storms, schools of fish come and go with the tides and my childhood slip through my fingers like water, no matter how tightly I try to grasp it. In all my observations of the marine world, I have found comfort in a creature that remains steadfast despite external changes.
My relationship with the horseshoe crab has become complex and intimate, made up of fond memories of playing in the mud collect- ing their molts with my father, seeing myself mirrored in their anatomy and behaviors, and discovering new lessons from both the individual and the species as a whole. The horseshoe crab is a constant and enduring creature that has been around for millennia despite all of the changes to the world, and a constant in my short life, relatively speaking. It becomes embodied in paper, paint, pencil, and charcoal throughout my work.
Link to original show information found here.
Fleeting, 2024, Thai Unryu paper, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery