I feel like I am tied to the tense, unrelenting pull of time, hanging suspended in space, surrounded by the debris of possessions. The frame of a mirror reflects a tipping infinity, and in spite of myself, I long to let go and simply fall into nothing. But instead I bury my head and push away mortal fright. The substance of my body, this thing that serves me but also is me, is caught up in stuff: the materiality of sheets, the retaining wall of folded clothes, the white light. The canvas is a taut, billowing space, pinned down by illusion.

Every day we pick up and put down the same objects, weaving complex webs of order and habit. We are tossed and turned about by circumstance and by each other, lonely and hopeful, self-replicating and self-destructive. An image is like an extended moment, grinding time to a halt  as we hurtle through life. Perhaps in the end a painting is simply an expression of longing.  If only I could see past the edges of my harness, this net of things and people and meanings. If only I could find a way through the image. If only I could succumb to vertigo, and truly inhabit the exquisite, untouchable world.

-Deborah Poynton