Cindy Tower

In 2000 I switched from building installations to simply painting ones that already exist. This has been a deliberate choice. Instead of using common everyday objects to build things out of, I now use common, everyday sites to make paintings of. I studied with Allan Kaprow and attribute this to why I have adopted an anti-aesthetic, realist approach to painting that includes a performance aspect as well. For years I’ve been almost as interested in the process of making art as in the product itself. Since the eighties, I’ve been performing as I go about making artwork.

Painting methods cannot be separated from the subject matter. Everything gets used and becomes part of the piece. Paintings get rained on, hoisted, buried, driven over, stolen, ripped; sometimes charcoal, blood, grass-stain, iron filaments are incorporated. Sometimes works get hit with paintballs or stuck with an occasional hypodermic needle. The act of painting becomes performance. Even the hired bodyguard becomes part of the act. Together we trespass, chase wild dogs, search out new sites, climb over walls and make fires in barrels.