Vestige

Vestige

/’vestij/

noun

a trace of something that is disappearing or no longer exists.

the smallest amount (used to emphasize the absence of something).

a part or organ of an organism that has become reduced or functionless in the course of evolution.

All created in New York City while self quarantining and not able to get to my studio during Covid-19, the ‘Vestige’ series became a group of works around making the most with what you have.

This series started with iPhone photographs of pencil, charcoal and brush pen sketches made in my apartment. Those photographs were then digitally layered in photoshop with photographs taken before Covid-19 of textures I found in my studio, from the floors to old Japanese papers.

Aesthetically I found myself looking a lot at my favorite mark making artists like Cy Twombly and Joan Mitchell. The mark-making qualities of their work function as a way for the artist to suspend their energy and gesture of that moment, almost as a way of saying “I was here, I was alive, and I existed on this day at that moment.” During Covid-19 the desire to make that statement felt more and more necessary. The choice to then finish the works digitally came both as a way to replicate my layering technique I would, under normal circumstances, have physically created in my studio, and as a fitting reflection of the art world in that moment. As all galleries were closed to the public and the art world has moved online, it seems fitting that the work could also be created and shared via computer.