A Bouquet Of Gestures

A Bouquet of Gestures is constructed from leftover dried paint collaged over recycled cardboard. The strokes in each color are a result of gouache being mixed and transferred from palette paper to painting. The colors you see are a survey of shades mixed over the period of a month. As these vibrant unintentional marks accumulated, they began to feel like a shadow painting. As a poet, the artist thinks often of the concept of one’s “shadow book” to quote Kevin Young, “The shadow book is... situated on the cusp of fiction and history.” A Bouquet of Gestures is a shadow painting, in that it archives the subconscious strokes that chronicle the speed, method, and labor, between the work more broadly considered as “production.” This work is also in conversation with Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s Night School, where participants wondered how to invite process, citation, and influence into the “finished” pieces. In the words of Charles Olson, this is an attempt to “leave the roots on.”