Tangled Dreams is an example of the artist’s Shedding: the exhibited series of paintings on canvass featuring overlapping textile patterns are essentially ‘dead skin cells,’ the real art being in the artist’s process of exploring possibilities in motif (and meaning) with this act of entanglement. It is both a playful exercise in serendipity, and a frustrated pursuit of new forms by re-imagining the old.
The patterns used are from textile traditions that conceive motifs through dreaming. The artist’s deliberate choice of tapping into traditional motifs also makes this series a somber reflection on the state of art itself.
Rather than following the trend towards conservatism, the artist chooses instead to re-imagine traditional patterns as opportunities for contemporary abstraction. As they are overlaid on top of one another, the dreams behind their design collide.
The result is a disorderly web of motifs that no longer belong to any tradition but which suggest both the modern urban person’s chaotic uprootedness and the endless possibilities offered to the unbound.
In this collision of dreams, the artist not only invites, but challenges the viewer to actively trace fresh hope, connectivity, and possibilities out of each layered painting.
