Paint + Fabric

Adair Stephens, Fantasy Boys, 2011, Acrylic on cotton, sewn into pillows and stuffed with rice and polyester fiber.

As painters, it's tempting to think of fabric as simply the support, something to build on top of, to cover up. But it is much more important than that.

We live our lives in fabric. It is on our bodies nearly twenty-four hours a day. We are wrapped in it soon after we're born, and it lines our caskets in death. We sleep surrounded by it, draw comfort from it, have sex on top of it. It is there for everything.

Skin is fabric too. We cut it up and sew it back together. It sags, wrinkles, folds, can be pulled taut. It encloses us, encapsulates the stuff we're made of. We wash it clean, put make-up on it, decorate it with metal and ink. This is what we do: paint over fabric.

But there is also paint inside us.

I want to know what happens when the inside spills out.

Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955, Oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports.