Whiplash is a series of paintings I had to make. Watching my brother’s descent into schizophrenia, and the correspondent slide into drug addiction and homelessness, killed me. As his caretaker, I struggled for years to help. The trauma of this experience poured into my studio in a way that brought messiness, movement and performance into the foreground, through me. Collaborating with dancers over the years has taught me a lot about physicality and its integrity. I used the force of my whole body in creating these works, beating them - then beating them again, building up layers of marks.
The title refers to one of the processes used in making them - rhythmically striking the canvas surface - and also to the eponymous neck injury. These paintings use light, tonal shifts, and repetition to evoke movement, energy, and space.
While painting I continually remind myself to stay in the moment, trust intuitive decisions, play with structure, and pay special attention to the relationship between materials and my coordination, strength, and flexibility. Even though painting is a solitary practice, this relationship to my materials is grounded in qualities of performance, and its inherent unpredictability and collaborative nature. What remains is concrete – a record of what happened.
