Statement of Current Work

My mixed media paintings explore the perceptions of power, boundaries and belongingness. I examine these concepts with a deeply personal language of color, form and the full range of opacity and lucidity, in non-narrative abstractions. These paintings operate as quiet but weighted visual communications, shaped by lived experience and sustained observation. Working in verticals linked with formats of shared information, while existing in a time of weakened connections, digital saturation and political divisions, my act of making seeks out a glimpse at affirmations.

 

Materiality is central to my practice, with subtle shifts or blunt declarations, seeking out light and space. On gessoed Rives BFK paper, I work with layers of oil paint and mixed media, using varying techniques. Pencil lines are drawn with force, or drawn almost hovering above the surface. Blue and red marks and shapes are isolated or alternating or overlapping or fading away. Oil paint continues the encoding of movement and form in the presence of perceived restrictions, engaging with the force of a brushstroke or quieting the evidence of my hand. Erasure and wiping-away is both material and referential, being another visual element of weighing contrasts: control versus freedom, exclusion versus connection.

 

I work and reside in the Pacific Northwest, with an immense presence of nature, the grandchild of those persecuted for their ethnicity and religion, and in a country of intractable opposing sides. A core contrast that is inescapable is the basic human response to protect oneself versus the innate reaction to help others, when empathy connects us. Where should boundaries be placed and which ones should fade away? Can there be belongingness without boundaries or exclusions? Holding hope while exploring these questions in centered verticals, using the mutability of oil paint and mixed media, is the current focus of my engagement as an artist.