Jon Miles Braddock

Through heavily textured abstract paintings, I examine how the marks we leave on the natural world are reflected in the marks left upon ourselves — and how both systems possess a remarkable capacity for resilience, adaptation, and renewal.

Drawing inspiration from canyons, oceans, deserts, forests, and the changing seasons, I use acrylic paint alongside unconventional materials such as crackle paste, cheesecloth, pollen, mesh, and other found textures. These physical surfaces become metaphors for erosion, accumulation, fracture, healing, and memory. Layers are built, obscured, excavated, and rebuilt much like the environments and emotional histories that shape us.

The work is informed by both ecological concerns and personal experiences. Themes of abandonment, anxiety, overthinking, recovery, reciprocity, and growth emerge throughout the series. Rather than presenting nature as separate from humanity, the paintings suggest that our internal and external worlds are deeply interconnected. The health of one inevitably influences the other.

At its core, Enviro/Mental is an exploration of relationship: between people and place, destruction and regeneration, chaos and balance, memory and transformation. These paintings invite viewers to consider how the environments we inhabit shape our inner lives — and how our inner lives, in turn, shape the world around us.