Uncanny Doubles explores the Freudian notion of the uncanny through both the distortion of bodily forms and the manipulation of materials to evoke psychological unease. Through a series of paintings and prints, the viewer is confronted by seemingly familiar references to the body floating in and out of odd, mysterious spaces. The seductive surfaces are lush, raw, and uninhibited. However, on closer inspection, the content bares itself to be unnerving at its core. Contorted limbs, organ0like forms, and skeletal structures slowly reveal themselves to the viewer, evoking a sense of the uncanny in relation to death and the dead body. Primal qualities of the imagery further arouse this sensation of the uncanny. There lies a sense of something recognizable yet somehow difficult to discern. In this way, the emerging references to the body function as uncanny doubles. They are manifestations of my own repressed content from earlier stages of life returning in a familiar yet altered state courses throughout the work. The development of the paintings relied heavily on material exploration. Experiments with materials ranging from paint, pen ink, and charcoal to magazine clippings, food products, glues, plant root systems, and even human hair served as a method for teaching me how to create a marriage between my love of materials and the content of my work. My intuitive process depended on this constant play with materials, and so did the development of forms in the work. What is a very specific form in the beginning is constantly shifted between being concealed and revealed through a laborious layering process. By balancing my control and lack of control of the materials, the forms are allowed to emerge in a highly impulsive and yet highly deliberate manner. Ultimately, the surface effects resulting from this process further enhance the content of the work. The forms feel fleshy and skin-like; numb and lethargic; animate yet inanimate; dead yet alive. As the work relishes its own materiality, it serves to both attract and repulse. This project asks a lot of the viewer. It demands time; time to relate one's own physical body to the work as well one's senses and emotions. In this way, the work is permitted to be very open-ended. By exploring my own psyche, I provoke viewers to delve into their own. These are psychological pieces and I want them to play with the mind.