Artist Statement:
Paintings
I am fascinated by space, not as an exact location, but as a mysterious place, an infinite place of wonder with shifting atmospheres and moods. Color, circular shapes, and layers are elemental to my abstract nature-inspired paintings. I work with multiple transparent layers of watercolor and gouache, along with crayon and colored pencil, shaping the piece as I go. Guided by intuition, I aim to capture a feeling rather than a concrete reality. Transformation is at the core of my work as I seek a world beyond my reasoned experience.
These visceral spaces exist outside the flow of my daily life; I enter a meditative state when painting. My process is dynamic, and I invite spontaneity by pouring liquid paint on paper. Following my intuition and trusting when to stop and when to work back into the painting is contrary to how I often exist in other areas of my life. I am a planner, a list-maker, someone who likes to know what to expect. Therefore, making work in this intuitive way stands in sharp contrast to other parts of myself. It’s the letting go that allows this work to come forward. I am enthralled by the not knowing, the seeking, the discovery. It’s exciting to work in this tactile way, embracing the tension between my need for control and my desire to uncover the unknown.
In my most recent work, my focus has been on space, not as an exact location, but as a mysterious, infinite expanse. Many years ago, I found text taken from documented UFO sightings. Struck by the poetic summarized accounts, I began to play with them as inspiration for my paintings. I am not interested in whether these sightings are true. I am instead fascinated by our desire to glimpse beyond the world we know.
Artist Statement:
Uninvisible Series
This project is about the experience of the home at night.
My objective with the work is to transform the home, a place we are so familiar with, into another world. I am interested in discovering the drama and mystery in objects and spaces as mundane as a branch, a bedroom, or a half-eaten cake. Late at night, the house is quiet. Darkness can make us feel uncomfortable and disoriented, but it can also be beautiful and peaceful. I am interested in the subtle tension that exists between these two opposing feelings. Spending time in the darkness – your eyes adjust and so does your mind. It doesn’t feel so strange anymore and can be appreciated for its beauty. Everything is seen in a new way, and light is the connector.
The images I seek are more experiential than descriptive. The photographs are emotive, capturing a state of mind, not revealing everything. Although we experience the dark everyday, it always retains a foreign element. In the dark, places and objects are not fully described. The absence of description leaves room for our imagination to wander, for memories to come to the surface. We can seek an alternate world in the dark through our mind. The lack of clarity in the dark creates moments of mystery, of trance.
I am interested in the subtle mind shifts that happen in the dark, an unconscious place with which we are all familiar but in which we do not often linger. Photography allows me to explore this state and to sustain it. I am using the camera to find a world outside of our experience, something that we can not see in the flow of our daily lives.