J. Eli

Painting, drawing, and installation artist. My work suggest a record of thought, they are evidence of time and space where action and thoughts overlap. I think of drawing as a reflection on mindfulness and the spontaneous occurrences that effect our everyday actions.  I choose to reflect these occurrences through intuitive mark-making that accumulates through both chance and choice. I embrace a drawing process that, while based on repetition, allows the unknown to develop. As in everyday life where a small experience, or a major one, can change your life forever, drawing can diagram these shifts within my mind and body and unfold itself endlessly. Repetition and accumulation are essential strategies in my work. I use ink and a wide range of brushes to develop the drawings that are strategized and unplanned at the same time . The permanence of the marks in ink allow no reworking, using specific ranges of value, and attempting to build a composition in this manner requires attention to placement from one mark to another. Contemplation of action plays a large role in the building of the drawings. Deciding whether or not the next mark is going to work within the composition. The drawings reflect my beliefs in Tibetan Buddhism and reincarnation. Trying to understand experiences by looking at them as an experience rather than issues can help channel unproductive emotions into clearer elements of understanding oneself. The drawings themselves are a metaphor for being mindful of my actions or thoughts and the permanence which they brand into my existence. Once my actions are set into play I cannot undo them. The finished pieces end up suggesting forms floating within a void of negative space and suggest never ending cycles of consciousness.