performative skin
June 2022
PROJECT PROJECT
Omaha, NE
This exhibition showcases new works which understand the canvas as an archive for actions and attitudes that examine how formal and material relationships can reflect on the construction of identity. These works began their life as a drop canvas on the floor of the artist’s studio where they collected daily accidents and drippings; cleaned brushes and excess paint. These drop canvases are fragmented then reassembled into a community of works with a shared history and culture, yet each piece operates as an individual. For Packard, these ripped apart and haphazardly repaired paintings on raw, unprotected canvas represent a queer, HIV-positive world that falls short of norms, expectations, and ideals. Packard forces together disparate gestures—uninhibited, gratuitous expression and controlled, analytical forms. The inherent values in these contradictory acts generate a shared visual lexicon by quoting and reinterpreting one another to explore and complicate the ways we perform identity.
