DESCRIPTION
In “One Thought Turns into Another” Worrell tracks how a mark can represent a thought changing over
time. At the the top of the canvas the marks are thick, densely layered, and refer directly to painterly brush
strokes. As she moves down the painting the marks become more spindly, weblike, and allude to drawing
or writing. Taking inspiration from Monet’s Cathedral Series, Worrell uses colors that mark a changing time
of day like sunrise or sunset in order to reinforce the feeling of change across time.
 
STATEMENT
Worrell uses painting as the site to learn and unlearn how to embody, reconcile, and integrate her Arab,
American, and Muslim cultural heritage. Each canvas becomes an arena to wrestle with inherited
conceptions of self: east and west, religious and secular, postmodern and ancient, family and sociopolitical,
and psychological and somatic. She pairs painting with an intense investigation of a physical practice
outside the studio such as horse riding, salsa dancing, or prayer. These practices serve as pathways to new
rhythms, gestures, and compositions. Through her body Worrell works through forms and relationships
that chart a path towards a unified, whole, sense of self.
This body of work, produced in 2019, focuses on movement as both a vehicle for disorientation and a way
to reorient oneself. Worrell was a member of a salsa and bachata performance team and maintained a
rigorous Kundalini yoga practice in New York City. She used the music, drawings, and muscle memory
from each activity as source material for the gestures, forms and colors of the paintings