flesh paintings

acrylic on canvas
7" x 5" each

I've been thinking more about the flesh and its many material and metaphorical qualities. It's presence in my work has been unavoidable it seems these past few months. Even my abstract, nonrepresentational work seems to pick up on the aesthetic. In this series of small acrylic paintings I have zoomed in on various places on my own body (elbow, neck, palm, forehead, and stomach) and have simply painted what is there. This is a different approach than I normally take. Unlike my sculptures which tend to start out with abstract forms and often turn into something that evokes the natural environment, these paintings were derived from life, though they appear to be abstract. I think this is a fun way to play with the boundaries of representation as well as the boundaries of my own work. I'm having fun with painting and the more I paint, the more I see it fitting in with my wider body of work.