My work expresses the accelerated passage of time by investigating the body’s process of ageing. Like the growth rings of a tree to the wrinkles of the body, time and age are recorded by patterns in nature. Time is based on perception; one’s sense of time is shaped by our social and visual experiences. My sense of time is a personal one influenced by the rural environment I grew up in and the large generation gap between my parents and myself. As I watch my parents’ bodies begin to wrinkle and their hair turn grey, the passage of time feels accelerated. This same awareness occurs as I experience the aging of my physical environment as the barns, tractors, and fences, on my family’s farm deteriorate and are reclaimed by nature.

My painting, Oblivion portrays the physical disintegration of the body by condensing the visual process of ageing. I begin with a highly detailed figure drawing in graphite. As I continue apply layer after layer of paint, graphic lines and simple shapes overtake the body’s highly rendered form. As time passes, the figure breaks down, revealing the structure of the body underneath. We all go through the process of ageing through the disintegration of our material bodies. But we often ignore this process in an attempt to repress the thoughts of the inevitability of our own death. By projecting my own perceptions of time onto my work, I show my own anxieties about the fear of losing a loved one and my own mortality.