For this exhibition, I wanted to follow the process of escapism and fantasy. Bginging with wistful thinking and abstraction in my window piece the work becomes further abstracted from our reality and the one reaches further into acceptance of said escape. The first four pieces focus on the enticement of escape. Reflections are an important motif in this first section, pieces like "Passing Days" and "Woman and Bird 1" focus on presenting a realistic scene and contrasting it with that of sometimes flipped (ex: an upside-down landscape or a woman with a bird face). Pieces like the "Watching Eyes" and "hanging flowers" also present ideas of reflection, through the subject matter of windows. This use of windows creates a barrier between two worlds, the home, and the world, fantasy, and reality. "Hanging Flowers" focuses on wistful daydreaming, "Watching Eyes" presents a fantasy that looks in and tempts the viewer. The next series consists of "Monster on the Wall" and "Shame" which consist of the darker underbelly of escapism. These two pieces serve as an abrupt change to the more whimsical pieces before, separating the first and third sections of these pieces. The last section (the third) of this exhibition focuses on resignation and acceptance to escape. Starting at "Woman and Bird 2" and ending with "The Three Graces" the last section of the exhibition projects an even more fantastical view of the world, no longer grounded in real-life influence materials (such a step yarn in "Hanging Flowers" or the textiles in "Woman and Bird 1") this section presents escapism to its fullest extent, ending with an allusion to Greek deities floating in space in the final piece "The Three Graces".

These pieces are intended to create a sense of escape and fantasy for the viewer. Through the exhibition the viewer is brought along a journey through reality avoidance: from flirting with escapism, fearing it, and then eventually resigning to its abstraction. The first section is made to entice the viewer by presenting pretty flowers, colorful eyes, and glossy windows. The bright and saturated colors throughout this exhibition paired with the uses of familiar objects such as windows, textiles, and walls, are meant to create a confusing juxtaposition of reality and escape. As the viewer moves further into the exhibit they slowly lose grasp of those objects that tethered them to reality until they are completely lost in space. The purpose of this was to demonstrate the slippery slope of resignation and acceptance when it comes to escapism. The two pieces in the middle are supposed to insight fear within the viewer. Using childhood nightmares such as a monster trapped in one's room, I created the "monster in the wall" to show the predatory and scary aspects of escapism, while the piece "shame" is meant to emulate and insight the anxious repetition shame has. These pieces are inherently negative and chaotic, so the next piece "Woman and bird 2" is meant to soothe and quiet the mind. This change between the two high-energy pieces to that of a woman sleeping resigned is made to imprint on the viewer the fatal return to fantasy. Although the woman sleeps peacefully she does so within a dead bird and as such, there is a sense of doom surrounding this turn from fear to resignation. Despite the bright colors towards the end, the imagery is supposed to feel slightly disconcerting. The slightly sinister smile of "woman in the moon", the use of a dead bird as a resting place, and the spiraled triplets of "the three graces", are all meant to create a sense of discomfort in the viewer. This discomfort is intended to serve as a warning that despite its appeal, escapism has unsettling undertones that we don't always recognize, even when the escape in question feels good.