Recently the dissonance of my own life and the larger world has become increasingly apparent and, as if a mirror to my thoughts, the “skin” of my drawings, the encaustic paint, became less dominant while the under painting asserted itself. The nature of the medium that I am using, that of a layer of wax hiding or masking the under painting, led me to think of the duality of our public and private lives.
I chose the title, Skin Deep, because so much of what we experience in our lives is a fabrication constructed from and simultaneously masking an invisible infrastructure, because so much of what we believe to be reality hides the labor and environmental costs that make our comforts possible. Skin Deep alludes to the corporeal. Skin, like paper, may be fragile and easily torn or cut. It is generated by what is underneath and can be destroyed by it as well.
Mona J. Marshall, 2007
