Home (Body map #2)

This painting is part of New Icons, a series of realist and abstract portrait paintings celerbating the lived experiences of folks with visible differences, namely burn survivors. This painting is an abstract gestural interpretation of my own skin. I acquired this textured surface as a young adult from a fire-related injury. We live in a society that stigmatizes physical difference and erases folks with visible disabilities from media. In response, I made this painting —a body map — as an apprecation for my body as a source of creativity, resilience, and play. The neon colors and gold leaf celebrate the valleys and ridges of scars deemed “ugly” or “pitiable” in mainsteam representations. In looking closely at one small area of textures and encircling it with a portal shape, I recontextualize my scars as iconography, decorative, and sacred. The word “HOME” is embedded within the forms. –Artist statement