The Collaborative Landscape

I am a process based painter in a wheelchair who collaborates with strangers to complete large paintings in participatory public events. I use video to document the relationships people form as they participate in generative social systems.

I place a 16 foot canvas stretcher as a meeting table in a central clearing. Upon approach, a decision is made whether or not to participate. My assertion is that when we step forward to meet and try, we want to do right by ourselves and each other.

Painters receive cups of iridescent mica flakes in solutions of water. In simultaneous corporations, each group of 20 pours a painting together. Compositions form as colors of individual flows curve towards weighted holes in the center of the canvas.

In our desire to impart something to others, conversations are created with pointing, naming and a dialectic back-and-forth across the table that has a forward movement. After a few minutes of recording this dialogue with microphones overhead, the painting is washed away and a new group is formed.

I am applying to grants and residencies in neighboring states, to take the table further towards my artistic and social edges, looking for contributions of dissimilar others, counterpoint and anomaly. The more diverse, limited or disparate the individuals or groups, the more unique and innovative the compositions will be.

I am interested in the inclusion of our limitations, making the case that the resistance we face in our struggles, along with the mistakes we make, have a generative friction.

This project was made possible by a 4Culture Art Projects grant which enabled the fabrication of the large canvas stretcher where we meet.