Variants, 2019 - present
The ongoing series Variants involves collages and paintings with patterned fabrics.
I am interested specifically in floral patterned fabrics, like those used to make clothes, curtains, pillows, quilts, and so on. These materials reference place on multiple levels. The patterns printed on them reference nature while turning it into ordered and reproducible images and functional objects. The fabrics themselves usually exist with/in specific places—domestic interiors and human bodies. I also lean towards these fabrics partly because I grew up surrounded by them—my maternal grandmother was a seamstress and sewed the family’s clothes and household items using very similar fabrics.
I see these materials as inhabiting our homes and bodies so I want to find ways to inhabit these fabrics themselves. I am looking for ways to burrow into each surface, “excavating” it and unearthing seemingly absurd or perhaps more “natural” patterns. I do this by painting over parts of the image or by reorganizing the pattern using collage. My interventions depend on the printed pattern. I enter into a process of studying and analyzing each pattern, looking for alternatives. Sometimes, multiple alternatives present themselves such that each pattern generates several new variations.
