Stay

oil & silk transfer on linen, 2020
39 in x 39 in
gallery wrapped linen on 1.5 in stretcher bars

The painting created for the Honolulu Museum of Art's 2020 virtual exhibition "Why Are You Painting?" is inspired by the first two sentences in Richard Powers' THE OVERSTORY. The lines read: "First there was nothing. Then there was everything." This refers to the primordial universe followed by the evolutionary miracle that is life on earth. Chimera references our anthropocene age, and the merging of the macrobiotic and the microbial worlds. These take the form of Hawaiian endangered plants and extinct birds, the human microbiome, and COVID-19. The chimera monster sits atop a bleached coral as jelly fish free float, a reference as to what will be left in the sea during/after climate change. "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters,” wrote Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci. As we perpetually collide or in some cases revive natural systems our continued survival remains forever intertwined with their fate.