The Distribution of Burdens by Gregory Dalton (Original Painting)

The Distribution of Burdens considers the weight people carry and how unevenly it is shared. Some of that weight is visible in labor, responsibility, and the physical remains of the past. Other burdens are harder to locate: inherited guilt, obligations accepted without choice, and expectations that go unspoken.

I began this body of work in 2009 and returned to it in 2026 to retouch the surfaces and reconsider earlier decisions. Working between drawing and painting, I used line to establish the forms and their relationships, while painted passages developed their weight and atmosphere. Returning to the work after seventeen years meant responding to what was already there. The earlier marks became part of the material I was working with.

Throughout the series, bodies and landscapes bear the evidence of accumulated pressure. Debris gathers, monuments erode, and figures remain occupied with carrying. I was interested in how these conditions become ordinary; how a burden can pass from one person or generation to another until its unequal distribution is barely questioned. The works ask what we accept as ours to carry, and why endurance is so often treated as a virtue without asking who benefits from it.