Basic Needs/ Higher Order
My project, Basic Needs/ Higher Order, uses watercolor paintings in order to explore constructs and conventions of suburbs, which engender a sort of idyllic, middle-class lifestyle. While I reference some realist and illustrational art forms through my use of watercolor to depict lush, vivid suburban backdrops, the figures that populate my neighborhoods are more jarring hybrids of suburban pests — deer, squirrels, and the like — and human figures.
By blending animal and human inhabitants, I attempt to dehumanize my neighborhood residents and subvert some of the notions of who lives in suburbs. My fragmenting of the images with gaps of negative spaces and collage-like loose and tight painting techniques draws further attention to the constructed and artificial nature of these spaces. Through an assemblage of negative space, painting style variation, and anthropomorphized figures, I examine notions of suburban life and the components of this American vision.
