BmoreArt

My work has always been influenced by literature, by story telling, by a book’s ability to let a person live inside an other person’s thoughts, walk with their feet,- and by the space a book provides in which the reader can creates their her own picture, textured by their her own experience, and shaped by cues from the author. My work is also influenced by place, place as a character, place with a mood and a history. Having moved to Savannah, Georgia from Baltimore, I feel clearly the impact a place can make have to on a person’s own mood, ambitions, lifestyle, heart.

Savannah is surrounded by swamp for miles and miles; it feels isolated, the isolation affects people, their laws, behavior. Savannah is a beautiful gem, green at all times of the year, quiet parks interrupting main streets, a slow brown tidal river at its foot. The sun takes care to flatter and heat every person and seed; the sun is also a character here. But it still feels alone. Living in the South feels so different, mentally and bodily, from living further north: the relationships between citizens and government, between races, and how people live according to demographic, between pride and bitterness, nature and man. This body of work explores why and how that difference exists, at least in me, the author of these paintings. The images are not all specific to Savannah, or even the South; some of the things that stand out to me here are universal or nation-wide, but that I see illustrations of in my specific surroundings.

I take care to admit that I am an unreliable narrator, lonely, born and raised in rural Connecticut, white, unsettled, uncomfortable, and desiring to understand, belong, help, matter, in a place where I feel like a stranger. I approach these subjects and imagine these stories from where I am, which is all I can do, and hope that the story of the viewer becomes an other layer in that story.

I asked for Joseph Young’s involvement in this show as a writer and an artist, as his microfictions place a trust in the reader to experience his words with space and story. His stories accompany and expand, or narrow, the images, opening more passages into understanding, providing the knowledge that we occaisionally may not understand.