Hot and Humid Ham

acrylic/oil painting, folk art/mixed media collage

This series of works reflects on the incubating nature of southern microcosms and all the elements at odds within a hot environment. As a girl raised in the south (g.r.i.t.s.), Meredith explores many of the perplexing and backwards outlooks of the South and how they seem to parallel, if not relate, to the physical conditions. She focuses especially on the cultural expectations that women experience, and all the while embraces the southern upbringing as an integral part of identity, whether warranted or not. These paintings intimate inherent struggles many young women have with tradition, sexuality and religion, and use shape, layering and found object to echo the complexities of a southern identity.