megan wolfkill

My practice contends with the desperation and futility associated with capturing or recording the passing moment within the planar surface of a canvas in effort to more deeply understand oneself and one’s position in life. This primary concern is framed by ideas of queerness, the fear of losing one’s physical function through aging or accident, and the desire to experience intimacy and vulnerability in art and life. In her book Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed says experiencing queerness in a heteronormative world is akin to being disoriented. I reenact that experience when beginning a painting, starting with a field of color that I am lost in. I orient myself by making the first move, and allow that gesture to dictate what comes next. The more I move, the more sure I am about who I am and where I’m going. Through painting, I oscillate between knowing and searching for what feels momentarily true. 

The surface of the canvas is a record of my physical body in the moment that the brush touches the cotton weave, memorializing both my delight and my grief as time hopelessly passes. We all will experience mental and physical change as we age. This is inevitable, and I know that. I insist on exploring the many ways I can and do use my body in the here and now, and the surface of a painting is a place to mark down the functioning of my body. Time takes us to places we cannot know until we arrive, and painting allows me to archive where I have been as I ceaselessly slip towards the unknown future. I want to remember who I was now when I am no longer this person. My paintings are personal anchors along the way to that ever elusive horizon as I look, learn, and experience myself and the world through the surface of the canvas. As José Esteban Muñoz says in his book Cruising Utopia, “queerness is always on the horizon.”