Puffy Pollock

Thomas Wolfe is well known for stating the disheartening phrase, “You can’t go home again.” However, when you’re suffering from an existential crisis, you can’t help but long for the past. This experiential quest is paramount; it can become an obsession to those who fail to resolve painful issues haunting their present lives. So how does one deal with this angst; this feeling that life has not been kind? This denial of the painful present, also known as nostalgia, serves as a psychological resource for the self. Research clearly indicates that when people experience loneliness they utilize nostalgia, which in turn reaffirms perceived connectedness. In 2016, I began a task of introspection that led me backwards to my own childhood during the 90s. This search of origins was ultimately an escape into the simplicity of my youth; an attempt to renew my “faith” in the “innocent delights of childhood.” Reflecting on a series of momentous and dynamic times in the 90s, these memories all had something in common—they were experienced primarily in front of the television set. Television, for better or worse, served as a reliable and constant companion. Ultimately, TV became a filter of real life events; a substitute for real personal memories that would normally originate from human relationships.

Ultimately, I was faced with a unique challenge: How do artists conceptualize nostalgia in a creative framework? I felt compelled to share my “selective” recollection of memory that otherwise would have disappeared into the recesses of my mind. Through “action painting”, a method widely used by Jackson Pollock, I applied an array of colors derived from my memories. Moreover, I wanted to recreate the texture and viscosity of puffy paint, a fabric paint that was extremely popular in 90s craft culture. The collection possesses over a dozen unique combinations of colors—a blend of strong and subtle 90s pop culture references. Each painting documents a thread of memories. I extract colors from these memories and, through action painting, apply them onto the canvas. They mirror the neurons that fire in the brain. Memories come to us so quickly, sometimes at the speed of light. They come and go, and they never come back the same way twice. In retrospect, “Puffy Pollock” was a cathartic way for me to document how I coped with physical and emotional neglect as a child. TV comforted me. I could transport myself through the TV set and be part of the cast of “Saved by the Bell,” eat the “Happy Meal” in the McDonald’s commercial, walk the desert in an Alanis Morrisette music video, or hop alongside the “Rugrats” in a Saturday morning cartoon.