personal statement
In my work I create a visual landing place where my emotions and musings show up in unexpected imagery. My painted language is honed from years of brush strokes, writings, scratches, captured photographic images and visceral responses to visual cues. The paintings continue to evolve while the act of painting itself connects yesterday's marks to now. In this created space, I am free to explore the influences of our past on the collective present.
I am intrigued by the universality of our being as it transcends time, culture and religion. The fiercely protective nature of a mother in Nepal, Bolivia or Italy recalls my own; the heartbreak of hunger or loss spares no one on this planet. My inquiry into global similarities and disparaties in a worldwide subconscious has been a primary focus of my work since I began to travel and experience dramatic cultural differences.
In my recent paintings, images pulled from the past or from other cultures transform as they appear randomly in a new, more structured painted context. I layer bits of travel debris, writings, photographs or other memory-ridden relics with acrylics, pencil, crayon, charcoal, and beeswax. The individual painting comes to life as I scrape, batik, melt, and carve into the media, burying these artifacts and uncovering or creating new images. These bound layers then emerge like a stratum of what was, capturing the cultural ideas, beliefs and conversations in the striations and forging a pause in the chaos and a clearing for subsequent passages.
Just as the advent of motherhood altered my perspective and thrust me into a more grounded, rhythmic lifestyle, my paintings have recently adopted more geometric and repetitive elements. I remain intrigued by the power of repetition and ancestral conversations in our lives. And I believe that annual traditions, classic patterns, memorized prayers, and shared ancestral stories can ground our lives and create a sense of rhythm and security. In my new paintings, the repeated circles--capsules holding poignant visual recordings of time, culture and tradition--exist as separate worlds alive in a peaceful, newborn context.
