Curatorial Rationale

I carry texture in my skin, my hair and my face. I am texture, inside and out, it makes me who I am and determines how I am perceived. My art reflects the layers of tension that I have lived, and the complexities that are hidden within fine lines. I take pride in my mistakes, and I embrace them through my pieces. My artworks are made to represent phases of tension and emotion that I have witnessed, and I further develop them through the movement of paint. One of my biggest challenges is facing reality; I find it skeptical and full of unwanted truths. Truths hide in between lines, and I project that through the layers of material in each of my artworks. My pieces are made to highlight the tensions that arise when I have to confront the real world, and the emergence of chaos. To me the real world is not smooth and perfect, it has smudges, cuts, patches, grooves, and dips; the real world has texture.

For the majority of my artworks, I use acrylic paint on canvas, because of how easily manipulated it is to create texture. Through my control of color variation I produce texture, to create illusions that make the audience identify realistic objects within abstract ideas. This can be seen in Warmth, Motionless, and Living Chaos, where I morph the versions of ordinary things into unrealistic perspectives. Contrary to Storm, I projected uneasiness by the messines of dabbed paint to illustrate the controversies within everyone. Similarly, Engulfed, Reflective Drips, and Embrace show the variety of textures through the placement of paint and materials. Normalizing the existence of our mistakes, and appreciation of the emotions that accompany them.

Aside from the paintings, I sought out new texture through installations and the use of unconventional materials. Patches is my shifting piece from paint into gauze fabric, to show I can distort the physical texture of a material from its visual components. For artworks like this one, I was inspired by El Anatsui’s expression of contradicting materials to produce visual illusions. I choose to be expressive by mimicking everyday normalities and implementing them in unrealistic settings, to encourage the audience to look outside of the obvious. This way, the audience can see that there are more layers to an event that can be seen with the naked eye.

I am told that the world is perfect, and smooth in all its corners, however my variation of materials goes against the normalities of the perfect lifestyle, rather encourages the acceptance of our chaos. Out of all my artworks, Thread, was most impactful in the completion of my exhibition by creating a change in surface. My goal is to break apart the texture that is woven in heavy material (our lives), and create new ones. Mark Bradford’s rigid texture through outdated materials inspired me to explore outside of the corners of the canvas, and try out new ways to grasp upon the audience's attention.

Given that the majority of my pieces are on canvas, it challenged me to find ways where the layout can scream diversity within the similarities of each artwork. My art connects to each other by the usage of paint strokes and movement in pattern. However, my intention is to still allow a change by spacing them symmetrical to each other, to show an expansion of movement. Thread will be hung in the center, since it is a big wide piece that represents the stretch of texture experimentation across my canvases. To the left side, I will spread Patches, Storm, Living Chaos, and Reflective Drips together. Following will be Embrace, Warmth, Engulfed and Motionless. These explorations will allow the audience to become intrigued by the dysfunctional mess of texture, and realize how symmetrical variety can be. Everyone has texture inside them, and my biggest goal is that the viewer can identify themselves throughout one of my pieces, and take with them the notion between emotion and touch. I seek for the audience to become open to the layered tangles that the real world offers, and allow themselves to feel the tension that circulates within all of us.

Contact the artist at floresmarlene774@gmail.com