The Tracy Piper

Lives and works in Portland, Oregon

Artist statement

I paint people like they matter. (Spoiler alert… they do) My work uses saturated color, figurative painting, and unapologetic visibility to explore what it means to inhabit a body, take up space, and be seen. I am interested in the tension between vulnerability and power: the parts of ourselves we expose, the identities we perform, the armor we build, and what happens when we decide to put it down. My practice moves between intimate portraiture, large-scale painting, public murals, installation, and participatory projects. Across those forms, color operates as both invitation and resistance. Bodies become landscapes. Rainbows become skin. Joy can be political. At the center of my practice is a belief that representation changes our understanding of who gets to be beautiful, powerful, complicated, and worthy of attention. I make work for people who have looked at the walls of galleries, museums, advertisements, and histories and wondered where they were. I want the work to meet you loudly from across the room and become more vulnerable as you get closer. Come for the color. Stay for the feelings.

Artwork