Greg Piwonka
Region: West
My paintings are a cathartic endeavor. The paintings look funny,
but I am constantly questioning my own privilege and upbringing
to critically reassess what I have been taught. Humor is used in
these paintings to lighten the load of larger topics, such as access
to clean water, patriarchal masculinity, capitalism, and climate
change. Often the paintings are autobiographical and include
domestic objects and patterns from textiles in my life. Frequently,
dogs appear as imagined characters in the work; they are used as
stand-ins to reference ideas about human behavior. My intention
is for the people, animals, and objects in the paintings to all
exist in the same painted world, but also to critique the world we
inhabit.