@leila.garner.art
hair, 11 x 14 in.
I am not a decisive person. My paintings sift through the tangled,
paradoxical layers of everyday life—moments suspended between
comfort and discomfort, intimacy and detachment. Lately, I’ve
been in the bathroom. A space of contradiction: a place to cleanse,
yet where the toilet brush sits next to the grime in the grout;
a space of solitude, yet where I am most exposed. I find comfort in
the heat and confinement, despite my fears of an intruder barging
in with a murderous knife. Bathrooms hold parts of self from medications
and shampoo bottles to the accumulation of hair.
My painting process is as layered and uncertain as the
themes I explore. Turpentine to conceal and reveal. In the end, the
finished pieces hold bittersweet sentiment, tangled reflections,
and the unintentional humor of not being singular. So here I am,
still in the bathroom, sorting through a multitude of emotions,
both contradictory and uncertain. I search for validity. Perhaps
there is a beauty in embracing these complexities, or perhaps a
sense of irony to writing down a process to which I am otherwise
ambivalent. Either way, it’s what I leave behind.