I decided it was time to paint some of my antiheroines when I needed them the most. Painting someone is a devotional job. This body of work tells a story of my life, brazen libertine women who drive me to be courageous and live my life fearlessly. Gorgeous, strong, outspoken.
Without art and artists - I would be lost. To open oneself to the possibility of seeing (not just “looking” at) a piece of art, requires an exchange. If you see the art, it resonates. If you cannot see it, the work just sits there, meaningless flesh and bones. But in that chance, a spontaneous and dynamic experience can happen, that humble moment of communion with art. Pure connection. “And the trouble is that if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” -Erica Jong
From a formal perspective I can get persnickety. These paintings are not portraits but inspired by images patched together from reproduced images available in the public realm. Female bodies as the repository of knowledge and power. I have painted them from the perspective of a lover not a voyeur. Erotic, yes, pornographic, no. Naked, yes, nude, no. The skin of a painting - it’s unique surface - I obsess on. The edges of the canvas I fight even though I know I need their limitations. Composition, though underrated, is critical. Negative space is full of possibility! I’d rather underkill than overkill. The palate is murky, muddy, earthy hues with a blast of cool springtime pastels.
Art has no borders - what are the borders between the temporal and the spiritual? This question is always present in my work and here I am using the open relationships between figure, horses and space. Everyone and everything resonate a vibration. Sometimes we are conscious of these vibrations and usually that leads to friendship and love of people, places, other living beings, and things. Anyone who has had contact with horses has experienced their unique powers. These paintings explore the interconnectedness of these worlds.
These watercolors and oils are inspired by local flora, botany, sky, earthly delights - all those triggers which can unlock our ability to daydream and see worlds within ourselves. Thoughts. not words. Water and paint - flesh and blood. I am interested in being sensitive to sensual beauty. All paintings are persona, and all are unique since there is only one each. Simultaneously, paintings are an ensemble of time and speed, light, texture and dimension. The meaning us up to you!
I was living in Oakland and thinking about how to make something that might capture a state of being. If I were to freeze everything for a moment, could I capture the essence of that moment? What is a moment in isolation? Impossible - this work is only able to speak by linking to each other like a pearl necklace.
Impetus: Color - the specific color - is always the central protagonist in these paintings. I try to take a meditative approach and protect fresh simplicity. Curiosity, intuition and experience lead the way. Honoring the unique qualities of the materials, playing with them and laying them out in a new way. Water, intimacy, fluids, and transparency. I’m a traveler starting from the inside of my body and extending around the world. The scale and dimensions of the canvases have a numerological relationship to my body. Even though the figure may not be evident, it is through my body that I experience the world, and the evidence of my body not the paint store is conscious.
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
- Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
This work is inspired by the quest for liberation from the past and the desire for individuality.
Having committed to six months in this teeny bitty Rapperswil studio so time was my bumbling dance partner and it had taken sacrifice to make it here so I was going to play the game the best I could. The months of loneliness in Switzerland drove this work. The combination of elements; my feelings, the grid, roses, and playing cards were the subjects. Masters of the grid - I used slick odd scaled local grid paper. The blue of the grid and the grey background are close in value, the grid almost undetectable in dim light but, in reality, it is the rigid skeleton of the paper. The beauty of my days could be summed up in walking by a wall of wild roses. Oh, those poor roses revived my sanity. I wanted to love my days in the Swiss studio, but I found myself looking forward to crossing off sequential numbers on my calendar. I kept this work direct: use grid paper, steal a rose on the way to the studio, study and draw it ripping apart, deal with the cards I was dealt, watch the minutes slowly tic tic tic away.
Why be boxed in? Rip it wide open! I love the paintings in Lascaux - all of the paint relates to the shapes of the rocks - a dance between materials and space. I ditched the stretcher bars in lieu of my fashion design sheers. I rolled out the canvas, cranked some metal, and cut out shapes of fabric. I painted on them - engrossed by the relationship to edges, the boundaries, the limits of the field. I pushed my limit of realism and abstraction - locating a space between everything “real” and imaginary. Capturing gaps between seeing and knowing - between memory and future - between symbols and experience - between emotion and beliefs. These curling and off-kilter pieces were then Velcro-ed to the wall - looking like newspaper that had been blown down the street and up against a wall