Artist's Statement

This body of work is my most cinematic and narrative to date. I explore the concept of telling a chronological story through several paintings, using scale, placement and pacing to convey the movement and progression of a scene. A smaller scale work will invite the viewer to come closer and experience the intimacy of the story, while a larger scale scene will force viewers to step back and experience the story more objectively. The same characters appear in multiple works to suggest a congruent story. The Scenic Route is a divergence and detour from my previous solo exhibitions. It's the road with more picturesque scenery, the alternate path, the long way around. These works are inspired by graphic novel and storyboard style as well as soundtracks for films and shows that I watch. For instance, "Title" by Disasterpeace, from the soundtrack of "It Follows" , has set the tone and mood of these works. I kept the whole album of this soundtrack in mind and listened to it periodically as I painted. I' ve always wanted to create a body of work that tells a continuous story. For How It Started (pg 6) I knew I wanted to tell the origin story of this plot. The models and I went into the photo capture session with this in mind. Not only did we have an empty time capsule house as our stage, I also brought a van full of props and had the hair and makeup ready. I rely heavily on the photo shoot as my reference point so it’s important for my process to have these details worked out so I can invent as little as possible during the drawing and painting stage.

The idea behind the whole plot is that it starts with a UFO sighting that turns into a UFO crash. This crash basically causes a chain of events that puts humans nearest to the site into a "zombie like state. ” The rest of the paintings are what follow from this inciting incident. (Spoiler alert: our young child heroin has secret and unexplained powers that her and her mother have kept hidden from the world, hence their hasty escape.)

Although I only want to suggest the story and keep viewers guessing as to what is going on, my ultimate goal with all these works is to introduce these characters, tell their origin stories and have them cross paths somewhere down the line. My intention is to keep people in suspense in anticipation of the next painting or even the next body of work.

With Receptionist By Day (pg 10), Cake (pg 5) and Do You Read Me (pg 4), our characters are in this fictional universe before our inciting incident happens. These depict a small window into what their lives were like, the rest of the works are what comes after. In the Ride trilogy (pgs 18, 19 & 20), I explore 3 different frames of the same scene. As the frames progress, the subject moves slightly as does what is happening out the window. The Car Window trilogy (pgs 15, 16 &17) explores the same concept. I have changed the 'camera angle' from a close up which then 'pans' to a wide shot. What the subject is looking at off the canvas, has yet to be revealed and will be explored in future works.

The Portal (pg 26), Waiting (pg 25) and Storm Is Brewing (pg 24), are a bit further in the storyline, a 'flash forward" if you will. I decided to jump around in the timeline in order to return to tell more of the in between moments with more works in another exhibition or for years to come.

Kelly Grace