How many ways can one approach mourning? I've tried to jest at it, deconstruct it, cover loss in trashy glamour and glitter and reassemble it so the source material is only hinted at. An assemblage of Instagram snippets and sad wry and sour jokes and heartbreak.
Still, loss cuts through everything. I keep trying to title paintings Failed Utopia. "Used that one already" my husband says, "or some variant of it. You want to name every painting that." And it's true. California is omnipresent, a grounding, overlaid with other landscapes, Utah, Cambodian beaches, Dubai. Misplaced animals stand as totemic witnesses to a world eroded by an accumulation of insults both large and small. And I'm letting go of the hope of ever seeing it any other way. Painting as protest when I've already admitted defeat. Damaged landscapes, pulled apart, puzzled over, persevering with a litany of scars.
