Each curio is found through dissecting lines and overlapping forms in order to create pressures and tensions located both above and below skin. We are not seamless. This is why I focus on the mutable body where flesh moves, changes, and has infinite variety. traveling the corporeal topography that is body. I rely heavily on memory as a tool for marrying light-heartedness and dark-heartedness and desire fusion between the beautiful and the macabre.

Concentrating on reclining or resting nude figurative poses, the body has a tendency to assume an arabesque form, which traverses and lends its rhythm to the entire surface, causing the body to retain its melodic line. Wealth of shape and rich color visible in the composition gives rise to the sensuality of these abstract curves. Fruit, insect and floral patterns add a sense of lightness and finesse. Each composition is typified by a sense of drama, a celebration of ornate textures and brightly colored.

At the heart of the work is not only a playfulness, but the recognition of pleasure, and perhaps even my own need to favor the ornament and decoration of both surface and self.

born: 1984, Paducah, Kentucky

education:

Fontbonne University, MFA Painting 2008
Fontbonne University, MA Painting 2007
Western Kentucky University, BFA Painting, Minor Art History 2006

selected awards/honors

Certificate of Achievement in Teaching, Saint Louis Community College, Academic Honors Program Instructor, 2010
Third Place Prize, Susquehanna University, Lore Degenstien Gallery, National Figurative Drawing & Painting Show, 2009
Award of Excellence, Art Saint Louis, The Exhibition, 2009
Award of Excellence, Art Saint Louis, His/Hers Nature, 2009

selected publications

MANIFEST Gallery & Creative Research Center, International Painting Annual, Cincinnati, OH, 2010
St. Louis Riverfront Times, "Malcolm Gay Encapsulates the Saint Louis Art Scene" by Malcolm Gay, St. Louis, MO, March 2008
City Beat, Cultural Paper, "Manifest Gallery's Juried Show Focuses of Eight Juried Artists" by Angela Kilduff, Cincinnati, OH, July 2008
MANIFEST Gallery & Creative Research Center, Magnitude Seven Catalogue, Volume 28, Cincinnati, OH, April 2008

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Contemporary Gallery of Art at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, "Curios: Paintings and Drawings", St. Louis, MO, 2010
Gateway Gallery, Gateway Tower Building, "Revival", Downtown, St. Louis, MO, 2010
PHD Portfolio Gallery, "PARAGON: Oil and Gold Leaf on Panel", St. Louis, MO, 2009

selected group shows

Attleboro Arts Museum, Ottomar Gallery, Seeing Double, Attleboro, MA, 2010
Maryville University, Morton J. May Foundation Gallery, Pleasant Memories: Annual Faculty Exhibition, St. Louis, MO, 2010
CINEMA Gallery, Painters of St. Louis, Urbana, IL, 2009
Climate Gallery, PAINT!, New York City, NY, 2009