I am a painter from Clearwater, Florida. I received my BA in Environmental Geosciences from the University of Florida, then attended Virginia Commonwealth University’s Summer Studio Program in 2017. I moved back to Florida in 2022 after completing my MFA in Drawing & Painting at the University of Colorado Boulder. Recently I have shown at ZieherSmith in Nashville, TN, and at Bell Projects in Denver, CO. The move back to Florida was informed by my painting practice: I found myself yearning for the subtropical coast, painting abstract environments of a place desired from a distance. The Gulf Coast of Florida is the landscape that I know best and it always seeps into my work.
My painting practice is a way of “churning the world” (a phrase picked up from Amy Sillman)-- gathering bits from the surrounding environment and turning them back onto canvas in novel permutations. This could be the shape of a seashell, the speckle from a slab of granite wall, a description of a pond from a novel, the color of a lightbulb passed on a walk. I embed these bits onto canvas so they won’t slip away. I like Manny Farber’s idea of termite art, with each work “going forward eating its own boundaries”, where “the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity” is all that remains. I continually respond to the bits arranged on canvas and wayfind through the picture place until the space is filled with a matrix of color swatches, seashells, pebble forms, and patterns. I pull in pieces of past works, combined with new colors and sensations. I layer ink and pastel onto canvas and paper respectively, then remove excess material through washing and scraping. These bits of color cannot slip away once embedded, staining the cloth. The image is often worn, changed, and softened in the process of making. The worn and water-marked material echoes the challenge of capturing a lived process of discovery which is also always slipping away. In my imperfect effort of turning sensations of novelty into a semi-permanent image, I make a new environment to roam.
madelinehjob@gmail.com
@1mjob on instagram
link to cv
