Paper Cuts

This series’s title, Paper Cuts, defined as a wound caused by a piece of paper, connects to the concept of this body of work which is centered on the—sometimes cutting—meaning of words. Some of these words surfaced in the news as the rhetoric grew more heated and divided within this country. Each work contains one word or a short phrase—shrill, nag, and floozy, for example—that has been drawn or painted in a way that correlates to how the word sounds to me. Each word becomes a character, subject to interpretation. Floozy, drawn in a loose curlicue script, wanted scalloped edges. repeated and pasted into a decorative latticework. From this drawing, numerous layers of colorful laser-cut papers and mat board are glued together, creating an enticing and intricate mass where letters and sometimes full words emerge. The idea is to transform the pejorative or unfavorable applications and undertones of a specific word with a reclaimed identity. The words are sometimes hidden, but their appearances—deceptively decorative—begin to engender new connotations.