Work in My Time Relationship, Laura D

I think a great deal about the build up of a life, meaning, all the things collected that are used to describe an individual. In my practice, I am concerned with ideas of the ideal and the actual and how each influences the other. Each individual’s present state is based on the accumulation of all past experiences bumping and mixing with the happenings of the present, the expectation for the future, and their understanding of self. Our impression of an individual is determined by these factors combined with our own empirical pile of past, present, and future. As time is relative to each individual, so are the assumptions and interpretations of each person in regards to themselves and how they view others.

I wonder about the debris we collect as we pass through time, sticking to us like burrs. I attempt to examine this through the metaphor of a wall that has been whitewashed over to quickly remove evidence of a past paint job, stains, dirt, etc... proof of the people, animals, and elements, having interacted with the surface over time. Recently I have been painting on drywall to examine the materiality of a wall. As of now, I build the panels as separate objects, not allowing integration with the structure of a room. This is to point out each painting's objectivity as well as a hesitance to commit to the building a wall to "better" serve the concept...

At the moment, the imagery I use comes from a kind of exaggerated saccharine interpretation of femininity combined with messy abstraction that is meant to serve as an element of chaos and violence, the latter representing the unanticipated events of life. By using specific imagery, such as bows and hearts, with a color pallet that might be described as "girly", I am approaching the origin of my personal experience of stereotypical ideals related to my gender. These types of symbols or decorations are stand-ins for what we and society allow to shape our expectations and definition of self and world. Over time, these expectations might be reached, they may change or diminish, or they might become channels of bitterness. How ever the these expectation manifest, they are present in someway throughout our lives, sometimes underneath layers and layers of paint.