ARTIST STATEMENT

Trained as a figurative oil painter, the body and skin are never far from my visual consideration. The language of paint—brushstrokes, color, value, shape, light--guides the making of all my work. I painted heads for many years, I wanted to get a likeness, a reality in the work. Along with the painting, I made collages using representational elements—a nostril, eyelashes, an ear from magazines-- to make head composites, heads that in all ways looked real, but were not. My intention was to create a plausible but fictitious face. With realism and recognizable elements, I invited viewers into a seemingly “safe” and familiar space to provoke more profound and unconventional insights.  As expectations are thwarted, perception is challenged and as certainty sets in, one opens to possibility. The work continues to change, but this is still an ongoing pursuit.

A few years ago, feeling dimensional, material and conceptual limitations of 2D Painting, I shifted my work to create an actual, rather than implied, dimensionality and to include a tactile and conceptual aspect to what I made.  Researching and experimenting with new mediums and new materials (textiles, wax, collage, paper and sculpture) became important to integrate into my practice. I now research materials for their “skin” properties—ways in which they can embody skin qualities--thinness and brittleness (paper), transparency and translucency (encaustic), malleability to be cut, torn, sewn, pieced, and painted (fabric).

“A fleur de peau” translates literally to “flower of the skin,” but it’s deeper meaning is to be highly sensitive and emotional. This expression reflects the idea of being on edge or raw, like English idioms "thin-skinned" or "jumping out of one’s skin." Skin is a subject I investigate across many mediums and a metaphor I mine in multiple ways. As a projection screen onto which the physical, emotional, psychic and spiritual aspects of a person are made visible, skin mediates the outside world and the internal organs—a shield, a membrane, a container. Working with the concept of skin in multiple ways allows me to experiment with materials and transform them--physically, optically, emotionally, and psychologically--connecting materiality with metaphor.

Art history and contemporary art serve as continual reference for and influence on my work. 15th century Sienese painting, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Edvard Munch, Alina Szapoczinkow, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, Dahn Vo, Berlinde de Brukeyre are some of the artists I look to for inspiration and as resource. Whether through small details extracted from larger work, or an object as a metaphor, each artist generates a vein of thought and inspiration for my work.

Ultimately, my work challenges opticality through material exploration: making one material appear like something else, the element of surprise shifting the reading and the meaning of each piece. Material becomes analogue for skin and process gives form to new ideas helping me create new methodologies for my hybrid painting practice.