industrial fallout

When my partner and I visited a car dealership in our neighborhood a few years ago, a salesperson mentioned that they had to powerwash their cars every few days to get rid of what he called industrial fallout: micro particles in the air that fell from the surrounding city and highways. To him, it seemed funny. He was just mentioning it in passing. But it horrified me to visualize these particles making their way into our lungs, and that wiping them away to sell more of what was causing the problem was just a part of doing business.

I started noticing the particles, the industrial fallout, on window ledges, highway underpasses, and other surfaces in my neighborhood. All the color in my paintings comes from the industrial pollution that I gathered in my neighborhood in Oakland and on San Jose State’s campus. I use two colors: black, which results when I mix the pollution with transparent linseed oil, and a reddish brown, which results when I heat the pollution prior to mixing. The images themselves are based on commonly seen experiences, but painted with the pollution that we generally ignore. My painting method allows for unexpected moments to occur, resulting in drips and abstractions. I do not have complete control over the paint, mirroring how we are letting pollution run uncontrolled in our environment.

The work asks us to consider something too many of us typically ignore: how so many facets of our lives are intertwined with irreversible environmental destruction. The imagery that I select touches on themes of food production, transit, electricity, future generations, changing weather patterns, and the undervalued work of caring for our air, soil and water. Each image asks us to consider what we can change, what the consequences are of our current ways of being, and where we might look for solutions.