I WROTE THIS STATEMENT FOR MY SHOW REMEMBER THAT GAME PRETTY, PRETTY PRINCESS. IMAGINE ME READING IT IN A VALLEY GIRL ACCENT BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I SOUND.

This is a body of work of paintings. There’s lots of pink, there’s lots of sequins, there’s lots of shiny, high gloss materials- those are all pretty things, right? Like, if I wore a pink sequin dress and had glossy nails that’d be cute, right? Or is it too much at once? I always get that confused, looking at so many pictures of Cardi B and drag queens and being from Dallas - like, the saying is more is more, right? Less is more doesn’t sound right. There’s a lot of yellow too, well Gen Z Yellow specifically because I saw on Vogue’s Snapchat story a few weeks ago that Gen Z Yellow was the new Millennial Pink so I started using Gen Z Yellow. Kind of like “One time I saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops so I bought army pants and flip flops.”
I made this body of work after I remembered my favorite board game as a little girl, Pretty, Pretty Princess. It was kind of like Candy Land but the goal was to collect all of the good jewelry - there was ugly jewelry too, the black jewelry- even though those are the pieces I would like to wear now but whatever - and if you did, you were the Pretty, Pretty Princess. Other players would have jewelry at the end of the game, but you had the most so you were the prettiest- see, it is more is more, I knew it.
So these paintings are about that game and how I feel looking back on it now- how it probably wasn’t the best game to play with your developing daughter, but I guess it’s okay because I turned out to be a feminist despite it, or maybe because of it, or maybe with it. Since then as a kid with that game (and my life size Barbie) I’ve loved pretty things, but pretty is such a complicated word now- especially when your Instagram is filled with other contemporary abstract artists, drag make up tutorials, paparazzi photos from Beyonce to Bella Throne and my friends from Dallas.
Remember That Game Pretty, Pretty Princess is a body of work that rationalizes all of those completely irrational thoughts and leaves you - and me - with probably more confusion than we all started with about what pretty means because when you think about it that board game’s ideology and celebrity look-a-like ideology are pretty much the same thing but I don’t think we were supposed to compare them side by side because that doesn’t help anyone’s anxiety.

/ November 2017