Pastel

: a soft, pale, delicately coloured substance

: pastry, a sugary food (spanish, portuguese)

Satisfactions is a series of sculptural acrylic paintings which began as an investigation into visual appetite. For this work, my palette is reduced to synthetically manufactured pigments which have existed for fewer than 200 years. Utilizing tools intended for cake decoration, small careful gestures allow thick acrylic paint to build over days, months, and in some cases, years. As the layered composition grows, its evolving body slowly consumes itself. Never fully satisfied, these sculptural paintings could continue indefinitely. Rich with sensorial information, their fractal patterns play with ideas of scale and representation, simultaneously manifesting characteristics found in micro-organisms, patisserie, crystals, and meteorological phenomena.

This approach highlights the ongoing nature of creation, suggesting that art is a living process, rather than a finished product. The culminating work evokes connections to organic formations and cultural artifacts, blurring boundaries between natural and constructed realms.

(“Pastel Satisfactions,” 2024. Acrylic on wood.)