Colossus, 2011

This series was painted after losing someone I loved. I was reading Sylvia Plath at the time, and her themes of grief and emotional paralysis resonated deeply. It was only my second solo exhibition, and I had five months to prove that the success of the first wasn’t a fluke.

I isolated myself in the basement of a log cabin in a remote farming area, three hours from the city. Painting fourteen hours a day in total solitude was the loneliest period of my life. Yet, I knew that if I could stay focused, I had the potential to build something new from the wreckage. These paintings bear witness to that experience.

While these are not portraits of Plath herself, the characters were sparked by a persona that emerged through her writing: a conflicted young woman plagued by monolithic ruminations, trapped within the demure settings and repressive social norms of the 1950s. Ultimately, these paintings portray a woman much larger than the trivial definitions imposed upon her—a figure who is simultaneously expanding and imploding.