States of America:
A series of squared paintings, made during the pandemic for instagram, contained by the comfort of a screen.
During the pandemic, labels such as Essential, Undocumented, Expendable, Indebted, Uninsured, and Disposable tended to highlight social ills and anxieties. The paintings start out with the word placed across the canvas horizontally or vertically, embedded in a gessoed square on a raw canvas. The image is created over the lettering, which is sometimes ripped off, sometimes embossed, or glossed, and sometimes just left buried.