Typically a negative image of something is meant to have a sinister connotation —it is common in horror movies and television edits, familiarly banal. The negative image has a convincing relationship to ‘the truth’, and as a direct complement, the two are mutually codependent (photo development depends on the existence of a negative image blocking out light). With that said, what does it mean to privilege this visual truth? Is it an inversion of conventional morality? Or is it a mere admission of the role of reproduced media in making my paintings—images that are created chemically, using a complex process of light and time, where the negative image is a hidden but crucial element. Laying that process bare while painting realistically make it clear the levels of construction and deception at every stage of the image-making.
