In this body of work I paint with acrylic and tempera on art cardboard (40 × 30 in), using a process built around repetition and removal. I lay down a passage, let it set, then return with water to wash parts of it away. I paint again into what remains, then rinse again—over and over—until the surface holds a history of decisions, losses, and recoveries.
The method depends on a blunt material fact: dried acrylic resists water, while tempera stays water-soluble. When I mix them, I’m not just blending color—I’m setting up different kinds of endurance inside the same layer. Water becomes a tool that can either erase or spare, depending on what I’ve built. A wash can bite into one area and leave another intact. It can dissolve tempera into a stain while acrylic holds as a skeleton. That split lets me control destruction without turning it into a gimmick.
Because the work passes repeatedly through water, the surface doesn’t accumulate the usual “tired” weight of over-brushing. Instead of grinding paint into the board, I let water lift, drag, and redistribute it. Edges soften and then sharpen again. Accidents happen, but they happen inside a system. I can push the image forward, then pull it back, and then rebuild it with a fresher hand.
This is painting that accepts entropy as a collaborator. I don’t treat loss as failure; I treat it as a way to keep the image awake. The wash removes certainty. It forces the next stroke to respond, not repeat. Over time, the surface starts to read as “aged,” not because I imitate age, but because the painting actually undergoes it: layers appear, thin out, break, and leave traces.
What stays constant is time. Each cycle records a present moment and then tests it against a later one. The result is an abstract history of layers—paint handled, partially destroyed, and returned to—where freshness comes from change, not from polish.
