I’m interested in painting as a way to explore what it means to be human, to be alive in this time and connected to each other—all with our own histories, our traumas, our stories, but sharing in our collective humanity and our circular ties to the future and past. I initially started painting as a therapeutic practice and that continues to be the foundation for my work: using color as a centering healing tool and a way to sit with different combined energies; exploring themes, symbols, and composition as a way to work through various experiences or memories.

 My art and practice come out of a pursuit to create and employ a language of visual poetics in which to explore relationships. This language relies on strategies of fiction, mimicry, recontextualizing subject matter, aspects of formalism, and a tactile engagement with the material. A conversation between the digitally conjured and the direct authenticity of painted marks often exists in the paintings. I find that these dualities and the circumstances they create can be reflective of the human experience and serve as a useful structure for exploration.

 An Bahk interweaves fragments of images from different cultures to construct an alienated space mimicking their multicultural identity. Just as East Asian culture values adaption to their surroundings, they collage abstracted images to create a pictorial space where different images blend to form a narrative as a whole. The ambiguity of collaged images is portraiture of their presence, which floats in between different cultural boundaries.

 In my work I explore relationships: the relationship between material, shape, color, gesture, and mark-making. Collage, craft, sculpture, and design merge. These formal experiments potentially speak to relationships between aspects of self, each other, and what we call reality. My job is to activate the materials of memory, divining new runes and visual emergency response. Maximalist tendencies and minimalist desires are strategically negotiated with each action. I seek out the tension between blithe rhythms and decay, connected to a vague lineage of queered and coded abstract language.

 

 Kate Worley’s work is concerned with dichotomies of space, bodies, and media. The tactile quality of acrylic lives alongside mixed media and photographed figures. She is interested in examining ideas surrounding icons, homes, media, neighborhoods, and the practice of home and self-renovation.

 Growing up in Ohio led me to notice the potential in the personality of the Midwest. The muddy wildness of oil paint is a very organic companion to the imagery of this area. My hope is to create sincere paintings driven by my adoration of both paint and my environment.

 These selected works are commentary on the problems of religious philosophies and their effect on an individual’s concept of self-identity. The paintings stem from personal experiences from my own life and the lives of others. The struggle of seeking validation from the people closest to me, and becoming open with my choice to turn away from their traditions, has created images I don’t fully understand but continue to create in search of resolve. The paintings focus on the resulting crisis of logic and reason no longer supporting faith, and the process of rebuilding one’s identity.

 I use the tools of classical painting to provoke emotions in my audience they might more often associate with theater. For example, I think great painting can be funny. My aim is an extremely high-impact experience for the viewer. To go the distance as a painter, you need to step outside received ideas. Writing about Francis Bacon, John Russell said there’s never been a great painting that made people laugh. I disagree. Humor is the most potent tool we have to disarm the viewer and leave them vulnerable to fertile, emotionally complex, and dif cult concepts that are anything but funny.

  Someone once asked me to describe my art in ten words or less. I said: “I paint people: mostly people in their underpants.” It’s a joke, but like most jokes, there is truth in it.