Dimensions: 20”H x 24”W x 1.5”D

Medium: Acrylic, mirror tile, and resin on panel

Year: 2020

Additional: Sides of panel are white • Original, one-of-a-kind painting • No reproductions or prints

This work is part of a series based on voicemail messages I started saving when I moved back to America, nearly a decade ago. Each painting is a visual representation of language used in the message: the abstracted imagery and lines correspond to a sound wave of this spoken audio. The title references this text - the core meaning of the message - and the number corresponds to the order of messages received.

After my phone was stolen while traveling in South America, I thought about the thief listening to my saved messages and how a person whom I have never met would know intimate details about my life and relationships. I realized my saved voicemails were fragments of my identity or deconstructed self portraits. Whether digital or tangible, I think what we save and why reveals part of our identity that might otherwise remain hidden.

Since the concept of this series is identity, I painted on mirrors to highlight the conceptual notion and literal reflection of the self. I intentionally worked with a limited and muted color palette to allude to the many gray areas in life and how things are “not always in black and white”. The initial square format of each work referred to how we view images on social media and the fragmented self-portraits we create online. But as the series (and my concept of it) expanded, I transitioned to include larger canvases.

The 20x24” mirror tile is mounted on a slightly smaller 18x24” white wood panel. I did this because I wanted the painting to feel like it is floating off the wall and convey a sense of lightness the same way a memory can.

Painting on mirrors is incredibly challenging because the entire painting can easily be destroyed in a matter of a few seconds by too much water, too much pressure, the wrong movement of a paintbrush, and many more things. Epoxy resin is also incredibly finicky and prone to error such as air bubbles if the temperature drops while the resin cures. This series was started at the onset of the pandemic in April 2020. The time consuming and precise nature of creating each work recalls the ample free time I had to make mistakes and perfect techniques during quarantine.