I began this series in January of 2006.

The nest represents an activity which has sublime purpose. It is also merely an empty object which may have exhausted its use. This dichotomy is relevant to the practice of painting and the scrutiny it has endured.

I am interested in the fundamental communication inherent in mark making and sketching. The immediacy of a sketch can expose an individual, locating them in a precise time, place and frame of mind. The line betrays the hand that made it. In my work I strive to capture motion, intention and motive. I have developed a reductive method of working that allows me to draw with paint, making fluid lines in sweeping strokes, at any width or speed. In my process, I work quickly and on a large scale. Initially, I began by painting networks of lines. They quickly took on nest-like forms.

I work within a strict set of formal parameters: one tool, one layer of paint and one limited block of time. In this intense and gestural process, spontaneous movements or raw actions occur. Awkward, elegant, clumsy, confident, all marks inform the work and all have equal importance. Accepting every mark made, nothing is re-worked, painted over or shaded. Some of the concerns that dominate my work are deception, vitality, trust, loss, aging, and lust.

 This body of work is an exploration of painting as an obsessive, ritualistic, instinctive practice which embodies all the contingency, uncertainty and instability of the real. It promotes painting as documentation of the intangible, evidence of one's humanity.

Stefany Hemming