| Description |
The Four Graces is the culmination of two years of graduate work in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Utah. All but three pieces in my MFA exhibit were inspired by early- to mid-Twentieth-Century photography. It was the space and the placement of the figures that I wanted to explore it was never my intention to paint photo-realistically. I chose an earlier painting, The Four Graces, as the title and centerpiece of my show because it's a self-portrait referencing, tongue-in-cheek, a rather fractured self in four disguises. I included Mary Ann and Toss-up because they were from this same time period and serve as a reference for the development of my later work. I am drawn to painters such as Ida Applebroog and Philip Guston. Their cartoonlike renderings convey messages that are powerful if at times enigmatic. These simplistic renderings belie the complexity of the content - a quality I seek to capture in my own work. |
