Paintings are records of touch across a surface. To touch is to be touched. To make is to allow yourself to be unmade. This is how I have come to understand the tethered relationship between painting and intimacy in my practice. Through their interaction my body and material make each other visible. Are you looking? A toe dipped into a still pool of water causes a ripple of concentric circles across its surface. Are you looking? A Las Vegas hotel drained their pool when the Black singer Dorothy Dandridge stuck her toe in its water. Does that mean what I touch is made Black? Is made queer? Is made me? Everything I make is a self-portrait. Are you looking?