Portfolio > Private Places

In Private Places, I used my direct experiences in a gated community in Hawai’i to frame questions around the darker sides of utopia. Neo-communal entities, self-segregation, lifestyle communities, gated communities and golf/leisure communities became my sources of visual research; they speak of luxury, leisure, excess and exclusivity while simultaneously hinting at a looming chaos in the form of ecological and societal breakdown. These painterly interpretations of our contemporary American landscape shine a light on our cultures’ impulse toward fantasy and perfectionism as well as its unwillingness to change or take responsibility for climate change and our contribution to it.