A woman standing around a fire asked if she should slow down. If she should measure her steps so others wouldn't be left behind. The answer came before the question finished.
No.
We have been making ourselves small for so long that we've mistaken the smallness for consideration. We wait for the right moment. We soften our voices. We dim ourselves down to a frequency that won't make anyone uncomfortable. And we call it kindness. It isn't kindness. It's self-abandonment dressed up as generosity.
This painting is what it sounds like when that stops.
The full title is If You Can't Keep Up With Me, You Don't Fucking Deserve Me. It is listed here in its shorter form for the people who need it abbreviated. The declaration it makes does not require abbreviation.
If You Can't Keep Up With Me was painted on the floor, paint dropped directly from tubes onto the canvas and mixed there with full body movement. Not brushwork in any conventional sense but something closer to choreography, the whole body involved, the marks a physical record of that velocity. The warm field of orange, pink, and yellow that dominates the lower two thirds of this 36"×48" canvas did not get painted so much as danced into existence. Payne's Grey, loaded and dense, occupies the upper centre but does not press down. It retreats. In every other painting in the Wild collection the cool and dark tones hold their ground. Here they don't. The warm field has completely taken over, the looping pink and cream marks moving in fast continuous arcs over the broader orange ground, the composition expanding outward in all directions from its own momentum. This is the one painting in the collection where the darkness is losing.
From the Wild collection, 2024. Featured in Curatory Magazine and Circle Quarterly Magazine.
From the artist's journal:
"A woman around the fire asked if she should slow down, if she should measure her steps to keep pace with others seeking growth so they were not left behind. I screamed through the flames, No! We make ourselves small, we wait for the right moment, we try so hard not to make others uncomfortable with our brilliance. I am finished with delaying my journey, with covering my light, with softening my voice. I race through my days gathering up as much knowledge and understanding as I possibly can. Creativity explodes out of me in great waves. I am in this life for my own expansion, and I cannot be slowed down by others. I will not. I will be bright and loud, passionate and vulnerable. I will try in every way to live this one life with my full participation. Those who can keep up are welcome. Those who watch from miles behind are welcome. Those ahead of me are welcome. But the steps I take, the pace I keep, the terrain I chose to race across is chosen solely by me."
A woman standing around a fire asked if she should slow down. If she should measure her steps so others wouldn't be left behind. The answer came before the question finished.
No.
We have been making ourselves small for so long that we've mistaken the smallness for consideration. We wait for the right moment. We soften our voices. We dim ourselves down to a frequency that won't make anyone uncomfortable. And we call it kindness. It isn't kindness. It's self-abandonment dressed up as generosity.
This painting is what it sounds like when that stops.
The full title is If You Can't Keep Up With Me, You Don't Fucking Deserve Me. It is listed here in its shorter form for the people who need it abbreviated. The declaration it makes does not require abbreviation.
If You Can't Keep Up With Me was painted on the floor, paint dropped directly from tubes onto the canvas and mixed there with full body movement. Not brushwork in any conventional sense but something closer to choreography, the whole body involved, the marks a physical record of that velocity. The warm field of orange, pink, and yellow that dominates the lower two thirds of this 36"×48" canvas did not get painted so much as danced into existence. Payne's Grey, loaded and dense, occupies the upper centre but does not press down. It retreats. In every other painting in the Wild collection the cool and dark tones hold their ground. Here they don't. The warm field has completely taken over, the looping pink and cream marks moving in fast continuous arcs over the broader orange ground, the composition expanding outward in all directions from its own momentum. This is the one painting in the collection where the darkness is losing.
From the Wild collection, 2024. Featured in Curatory Magazine and Circle Quarterly Magazine.
From the artist's journal:
"A woman around the fire asked if she should slow down, if she should measure her steps to keep pace with others seeking growth so they were not left behind. I screamed through the flames, No! We make ourselves small, we wait for the right moment, we try so hard not to make others uncomfortable with our brilliance. I am finished with delaying my journey, with covering my light, with softening my voice. I race through my days gathering up as much knowledge and understanding as I possibly can. Creativity explodes out of me in great waves. I am in this life for my own expansion, and I cannot be slowed down by others. I will not. I will be bright and loud, passionate and vulnerable. I will try in every way to live this one life with my full participation. Those who can keep up are welcome. Those who watch from miles behind are welcome. Those ahead of me are welcome. But the steps I take, the pace I keep, the terrain I chose to race across is chosen solely by me."
