My oil paintings explore the open road as a complex emotional and psychic space, drawing upon my experiences driving long distances alone. I’m interested in the myth of the all-American road trip as a space to experience freedom, adventure, and transcendence, and how that coincides with my own experiences that are as much banal, neurotic, intimate, and humorous as they are epic. This duality is expressed in my work through evolving motifs like bumper stickers, billboards, stars, stranded tampons, and lost necklaces that evoke a human presence, even in the absence of literal figures. My work combines compositional inventiveness with explorations of shape, space, color, and the materiality of oil paint to bring a visceral, embodied experience to each painting as it recalls being on the road.
Artist Instagram: katiemarshallstudio
