You name it!, 2022

oil on canvas (diptych)
96”x 192” (244cm x 488cm)

You Name It! is the largest Quilt in the series, a diptych of two square canvases making one continuous larger-than-life panorama that takes over the wall and evokes the grandeur of Baroque-era scene paintings. The piece depicts a colossal “texturescape,” a tilt-shift view of a colorful abstract world filled with multilevel floating planes, stretches of tile-like squares, and sumptuous swirly lands dotted with bright circles. If you think of the piece as a map of a fantasy world, there is almost an infinite amount of sightseeing destinations: unique painterly landmarks and birthplaces of serendipitous tactile occurrences.

Some of my favorite moments have been the unpredictable interactions of color that happened as the texturescape grew with time. There are little dances that happen between two ribbons of paint swirling together by happy accident, there are harmonious clashes and unexpected marriages between two neighboring brushstrokes. Consider the little trails of Hue Black that shimmy into the pattering brushwork of a green square... I see it as a fortuitous occurrence to be celebrated!

Just as I allowed the piece to guide me as I built up the layers of rich impasto paint, the final painting is not meant to be prescriptive in its meaning to its audience. As the title suggests, I invite the viewer to let imagination guide you in your experience of the painting. What does it remind you of? What do you notice first? What areas are you most drawn to? There are no wrong answers, so long as you allow yourself to take a slow and up-close tour of the entire pictorial space :)