Maria Britton

Region: South

I paint on old floral bed sheets, which are worn and faded from years of dreaming and washing. I find comfort in the predictability and familiarity of the floral patterns, but I also see these patterns as visual representations of tired but unquestioned traditions. In my work, the floral patterns are disrupted, restructured, and buried by my own improvisational visual language. From conception to death, the surface of a bed is a place where one both experiences and escapes reality, a physical link between dreaming and waking life. My paintings are meant to actively depict the excitement found in questioning examples of conformity and the potential found in sleep's disorienting ability to wipe away a person's physical location in time. But once the film of sleep has cleared, the predictable patterns of every day fall into place, reminding the sleeper of the present and all of its habits.