While drawing this landscape that I was fortunate enough to happen upon, it became apparent just how ostentatious nature is. I never asked nature to create mountains, giraffe, zebra and tigers, strawberries, trees, hands, water, breasts, tiger-lilies and so much more. However, it has all been given to us to enjoy and embrace. The experience of seeing this landscape in person was intoxicating. I knew that simply drawing the landscape would not do justice to the ecstasy that had manifested in me. I figured that the only way to join the actual environment I was seeing and the ecstasy was to use fantastical colors and surreal form. By using kaleidoscopic color and form I can celebrate all the feelings I experienced and potentially help the viewer experience a similar sentiment.
An idea crossed my mind, “What is the meaning of everything we ever touch and what is my relationship to it?” This led me to consider several ideas such as consumerism, metaphysics, beauty, and so on. However, I don’t wish for these three pieces to be limited to only the topics aforementioned. I meant instead to strike general thought about all that exists around us. While I’m not an avid shopper of Victoria’s Secret for hopefully obvious reasons, people around me are. I wanted to take their preference and supposed waste and create something beautiful out of it. The recycled shopping bags once carried desirable garments for the individual. However, I’m not just thinking about the garments. I’m also thinking of the utility of the waste, the dynamics between the person and product, as well as the perpetuation of beauty. This finally led me to the realization of my relationship to the things I encounter. The relationship is that of my choosing, another might choose to see a political or social comment in my piece, or any other piece for that matter, and that’s what I want. I hope my forms allow the viewer to deduce whatever they want. However, I also must choose what I want. I choose to perpetuate beauty and to celebrate all that is around me.
Huckleberry
Katherine (Taming of the Shrew)