I have been baring my teeth and using my paintbrush against injustice and celebrating the miracle of living through painting for many years. In 2020, my brush found inspiration from living within the age of Covid-19. I documented our sequestered pain, desires and politics.
Born in Texas, with Mexico next door, I was influenced by the land and the Mexican folk art I dearly loved. Both the dusty colors found within the landscape of the Southwest and the bright palette found within narrative folk paintings have influenced the way I use color. Storytelling and pattern making are central to the folk art form. I learned early on the potency found within story, where one can be revived and challenged.
Spirituality threads everywhere in my world and is the cloth I am made of. I was raised in a conservative Jewish family and steeped in ritual. I understood from an early age the power and capacity of ceremony and that objects as well as the land are infused with spirit. I learned to honor something deeper than myself. And that there was a respect found beyond the borders of my corporeal being.
Dots lead my narrative image-making presently. Dots are both energy and form.
As circles, dots can become windows into consciousness. As points, dots can punctuate beginnings and endings.
Or perhaps dots are points of light. They may represent energetic molecular origins or infinity itself. We all begin and end somewhere.
Currently the dots arrange themselves reflectively as experience. These new paintings journal stories while we all lived within the pandemic. The political landscape also threads through these paintings.
The paintings punctuated with points remind us that all sentient life is simply bits of colored light. Viewed within this frame, you and I become more alike than different, sharing concerns. i.e. caring for the health and well being of our families, having work that sustains and nourishes us, being able to afford health care and roofs over our heads, and to be treated with respect and dignity, represent many of our desires and needs.
Perhaps the dots may magically remember us to our deep origins.
For in reality, in my world, everything is made up of molecules and light … If we could ‘see’ each other in this way, how would the world change?
Eva Rose Goetz, December, 2020.