My paintings play at the fringe of dreams and the waking world with as much detail focused on capturing the reality of the scenes I paint as the emotive projections that I draw upon them. My work deals primarily in eye-avoiding self portraiture, vignettes of intimate ephemera, and gloomy, cinematic spirit-scapes. Through these scenes I seek to remedy my trauma rooted in patriarchal forces and create lucid spaces for empathy and catharsis. The scenes I create straddle vivid reality and smokey fantasy combining the fantastical narratives that my trauma inspires and the spaces where I seek to heal. Through sharing my world’s peculiarities-phrases from friends that brought a smile to my face during bouts of melancholy, the cars that offer me a means of escaping reality, the doorless rooms where my spirit awaits transformation- I tell stories that make my journey through trauma quiet yet profound, universal yet rare, and a burden no longer for me to bear alone.

Contact: mwarp@cranbrook.edu

DM: https://www.instagram.com/mitten_with_knife/