The is the first painting of series "TheyWalkWest". This body of work presents a reimagined and radicalized “New Frontier”. By drawing from the iconic self image forged by the American West, these works focus on introducing the female body into this previously male-dominated space. The Western frontier has long been the idyllic sanctuary for the hyper-masculine cowboy, whose mythic heroism has erased the female voice and body from the origins of American history. This body of work functions to reframe the iconographic significance of the female body within the context of these past histories. Through this body of work I aim to stimulate a creation of a new Western Dreamland that does not physically exist as the 100th Meridian marks, but celebrates a destabilization of the western mythology that is deeply ingrained in our country's history. In spite of this ruthless past landscape, these works are beginning a call to arms for the emergence of a new outlaw.
In this first painting, the outlaws are in motion towards the reimagined frontier: a leader, lurching back to release a battlecry, a figure who seems to hold control of the surrounding landscape, an army on horseback winding endlessly up the mountains behind them.