Never Quite is the synthesis of ideas I have worked with during the past semester (my 3rd in the MFA Program at UTSA). I am seeking to find the creators and sources of my own existential dread and somatically realized traumas. However, with memory as my only tool this can be tricky- it deals in imperfect copies, tarnished contexts and abstractions. The progressive loss of memory through the creation of continual “presents” can be seen as a traumatic act in itself. The project is a collection of paintings, illustrations and sculptures that try and connect with each other through loose-ends and amalgamated inversions of fact using both media and ephemera from my upbringing and cultural background; Crafting, American Patriotism/Texan Secessionism, Evangelical Christianity, The Working Class of the South, Violent and Alienating Male Bonding Rituals, Body Dismorphia, among other things. This is a means of recontextualizing the self or rather, recreating it.

Mixed Media Installation in a 9 ft x 12 ft x 8 ft room

At The UTSA 2D Graduate Studios