Haunted Houses + Art Residency

In studio at PlatteForum Artist Residency

Do you have recurring nightmares?

I’ve been having this nightmare over and over for years. I can’t remember when it started, could have been as a child, could have been as an adult—I just know the familiarity of the dream when it comes every week.

They always start the same. I’m an adult but a child again—moving into a new-to-me old house that’s always grand, a fairytale home with my mom and younger sister.

But as we move in there’s an odd feeling. If I stay in the foyer—safe.

However, tempted, I begin searching for the second best room. Trekking deeper and deeper into the new-old house—

from first floor…

to second floor…

to third floor—deeper into the maze of spectacular rooms.

But my shoulders tense as each room becomes odder and odder. Nothing’s out of place, just a feeling that I’m not where I should be—trespassing.

Having enough—my nerves screaming—I start backtracking but it’s too late. I’ve awoken the home, and the home wants to eat me.

I wake up.

Image sourced from Cascades Theatrical Co

Movie still from Rose Red

This dream could be a result of the abundant horror I’ve consumed since childhood—with a deep emphasis on haunted houses such as Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to Stephen King’s teleseries Rose Red.

I’ve also tried to dissect it with my therapist. But no amount of rationalizing has ever made the dream stop coming back.

So I am making use of it—using the haunted house as the inspiration for the new series of paintings I am working on.

This new work follows two characters as they navigate a haunted house—where racial identity appears as a haunting presence, a lurking shadow deity, or a glowing idol—and the two characters must confront that perhaps they are the ones that are haunted.

Artworks in progress