Excess

Materials: Canvas, acrylic paint, reflection, questioning, a hint of self doubt, a stand for beauty in all its forms

Dimensions: 12x16

Series: None

Year: 2013

Excess started as a challenge.

I had too much paint on the canvas- it was dirty from mixing with other colors and had to be removed. It was garbage, extra, useless, ugly, too much, a mistake, etc. I should have thrown it out, only this was still paint. It still had the properties of the good stuff, and there was nothing really wrong with it but a little color and the context I’d given it. So I decided to put it on another canvas, and it waited there until I finished the current painting.

It wasn’t the paint’s fault I overestimated how much I would need, why punish it? Suddenly this thought came to me about how many beautiful overweight people never get to be seen as beautiful because of their “extra”.

So I committed to making beauty from the excess, because there’s nothing wrong with a little “extra”.