Artist Statement:

Through my work, I explore relationships of human connection and disconnection, the psychological impact of socially constructed norms on marginalized individuals, and the protective methodology inherent in the minds of those who have been deeply wounded during the most vulnerable stages of life.

I employ elements of cotton production as metaphor to simultaneously denote conflicting dualities of comfort and violation. I associate bleached cotton fabric with comfort, sterility and the white of the canvas while the historically high human cost of harvesting cotton, through slave labor and the travail of migrant workers, adds a dark undertone of abuse. The modern methods of harvesting this plant produce a visual language of a thing stripped bare, removed of all perceived value and left an empty husk. I use cotton to convey the fragile state of a victimized conscious that simultaneously occupies a position on both sides of a boundary.

The female form features prominently in my work. Though the images are beautiful and vulnerable, they are placeholders. These paintings are internal worlds made visible. The viewer is allowed in and offered a chance for personal reflection but can only take away what they themselves bring because the image exists in a closed circuit, firm in its sovereignty.

I am interested in making visible, the hidden; in bringing light to the things we leave out as a society, as individuals, and from our own stories.

Julia Woli Scott