Lukey Walden

I try to imagine a scrutiny free from transaction and authority, where time and generosity are not scarce. If real generosity divests from the expectation of returns, then what are the full implications of imaging someone in this way, through touch? My sitters gave me permission to stare at them in private. What happens to this momentary consensual gaze over time, prolonged into months of looking? Prolonged into an abundance of labor, abundance of attention, abundance of precious materials?

I want to contribute to a vocabulary for expressions of care that precede the desire for understanding. I question the primacy of empathy as a goal in portraiture or as a prerequisite for acts of protection, stewardship, and solidarity. From painting, I ask for a place to grow my own capacity for care across distance. The language of paint is a vocabulary of intimacy: touch, attention, accumulation, compromise, repair. I have faith in painting as a tool for naming the places where language and other structures fail.