107th Annual SoVA Student Exhibition at The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, May 2021, installation view.

This spring it was absolution thrilling to be back in person for an exhibition, albeit in a limited capacity, the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The 106th University of Oklahoma student exhibition was 100% online, a disappointing experience for my first student show at the university. Since 1915 the School of Visual Art at the University of Oklahoma has been preparing students for success as artists, designers, scholars, teachers, and influential patrons of all the arts. I’m excited to participate in this tradition during the second year of my MFA program.

The exhibition, curated by Juror Craig Anderson, includes three of my most recent paintings. These paintings reflect new directions and ways of thinking about painting that I am developing. They are important because they demonstrate a departure from my focus on pure abstraction. Each painting demonstrates a link to contemporaneity, infusing my images with tangible references.

*The Legend Of Okjökull - Study,* oil on canvas, 12 x 28 in, 2020.

My painting The Legend Of Okjökull - Study is the first that investigates relationships between science and art. More specifically, the integration of abstract painting with images that infuse it with contemporary meaning. The Okjökull was a glacier in Iceland, northeast of Reykjavik. Over the past several decades the glacier has been subjected to warming summers. This once iconic glacier has melted away and now less than one square kilometer remains. In 2018 a memorial was held atop its remains. This painting remembers the former glacier and is based on NASA’s September 14, 1986 aerial photograph. I use formal elements to transform the aerial view of the glacier into a monument and sign of warning. The glacier is painted in purples, a color associated with nobility, dignity, grandeur, and magic. Yellow on the other hand is a color of contradictions. While yellow can suggest happiness, positivity, and loyalty, it is also a sign of instability, caution, and sickness. This study is the preliminary work for a larger, 72 x 120 in, painting that brings a sense of monumentality to the subject.

*If only you had listened to Dr. Fauci,* diptych, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 in, 2021.

The second painting included in the show is titled If only you had listened to Dr. Fauci. Perhaps one of the defining images of the COVID era is the ubiquitous graph that illustrates both rising infection rates and the threshold at which hospitals will be overwhelmed. In this painting I use a flatten the curve graph and the hospital capacity threshold to create the image. The titled references the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States, Dr. Fauci. Painted during the final months of 2020, the title comments on his stifled voice of Dr. Fauci for political purposes. The painting received the Norman Arts Council Award selected by the organization’s Director, Erinn Gavaghan. In addition to the award the painting was purchased by the Bizzell Memorial Library, for its permanent collection at the University of Oklahoma.

*Noradrenalin Dilation,* oil on canvas, 40 xx 30 in, 2021.

In my third work, Noradrenalin Dilation, I take a look at Neuroscience Psychology which links physical responses to emotion and psychology. Only recently, in the last several decades, have scientists identified the full range of neurotransmitters in our brains and are now beginning to learn how they work together to produce emotional, physical and psychological responses. This painting is about the chemistry of emotion. It relates color to the role of neurotransmitters that regulate our moods. Here color acts as a metaphor for Noradrenaline which emerges from a gray nimbus. Noradrenaline is a transmitter similar to adrenaline that increases our level of alertness, priming us for action. It also increases our blood pressure and widens our air passages. The painting was selected by Craig Anderson for the Excellence in Painting Award.

107th Annual SoVA Student Exhibition at The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art