Watercolor collage, with some elements lifted off the page to provide dimensionality. In certain lights, a shadow is cast to create its own element in the painting.

Painting dimensions are approximately 5x7”; outer frame size is approximately 9x11”.

Custom-framed in a deep shadow-box frame with UV glass.

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CONCEPT:

I spend a lot of time thinking about how cultures visually communicate holiness, what means we use to elevate one object or human being above the rest, the ways in which we communicate their sanctity without words. Over the years, I've done some amateur comparative art history fused with a bit of comparative religious studies and have become fixated on certain recurring themes. Enclosing an object, elevating it, assigning it certain colors: all are tactics repeatedly used in art (especially religious art) to indicate divinity and sanctity.

For instance, the halo, such a universally recognized symbol of the divine in Western culture, is quite literally drawing a circle. It's akin to circling a spot on a city map that we might want to visit, or circling a best friend’s photo in a yearbook: this, the circle says, is more important than the others. We observe the same underlying principle in the Ancient Egyptian cartouche, which was exclusively used by Pharaohs: a set of hieroglyphs enclosed by an oval with a line underneath denoting the elevated status of the name within. It's a shorthand of sorts: when we encounter a circle around something, whether in ancient religious iconography or modern daily life, whether around a saint’s head or on our own grocery store list, we know immediately that what lies within is important.

If we think of circling something as a two-dimensional means of denoting holiness, its three-dimensional counterpart is enclosure. In Thailand, I became interested in the culture of niches and amulet chests. I loved seeing how small Buddha amulets, coins, and other precious religious objects were housed in many-pocketed amulet display cases. Each object had its own special niche, its own spot, enclosed on all sides-- circled, you might say-- and visible from the front. And yet a further step of three-dimensional circling comes in the form of complete enclosure: Eastern Orthodox reliquaries, Buddhist stupas, some Hindu shrines, the Jewish ark that holds the Torah, and so on.

In 2017 and 2018, I completed a series of niche-centric paintings inspired by amulet chests in Thailand and Southeast Asia more broadly, placing elements from the Louisiana landscape into each niche. More recently, I began placing “personal symbols” (like the magnolia seed, here) inside niches and other enclosures to act as protective entities on the wall.