ARTIST STATEMENT - Current Work
I borrow imagery from the natural world as a way of exploring perception and discovery. My paintings use botanical silhouette, landscape, and textiles to reflect on the environment as a symbol of connection, vitality, and fragility.
The bold silhouettes of plants speak to the intricacy of life that springs forth when it seems as though the world is forever dormant. Started during the pandemic and then made through Wisconsin seasons, this body of work examines how regrowth rings miraculous every time, and the elegance and detail of a true silhouette illustrates the complexity alongside the simplicity of this cycle. In some paintings, a burgeoning source of light appears. This warm glow represents the hope that can emerge even when we cannot see how it will. There is optimism in light that can warm our hearts and minds if we let it.
In some work there are painted strips that float under the plants that capture a landscape in a small space. This imagery is constrained to forcibly narrow the viewer’s focus. A truncating of the grandeur of the vista allows us, perhaps, to notice it more readily. These small moments of the panorama invite contemplation, reminding us that we never see the full picture of any place, experience, or person.
The newest work focuses more on landscape. Applied with opaque paint instead of the more ethereal application of the earlier work, these pieces are a celebration and meditation of the scene. Strips of fabric seem to sit atop the landscape. They serve as intentional interruptions to the natural image, and they both obscure part of the whole and connect the natural world to personal comforts. Familiar patterns and fabric are inextricably connected to daily life, and the graphic quality of the textiles contrasts with the natural scenes to present an unexpected dichotomy. We are at once close to the natural world and separate from it, and the folds of the painted fabrics mimic natural forms while also floating on top of them. By hovering above, interacting, and obscuring, the combination of the textiles with the landscape celebrates life’s discoveries and hidden truths.
Even with care and reverence, we leave our mark on this world, and these graphic interpretations commune with the power and tranquility of nature. The fabric strips intentionally conceal pivotal points in landscapes, emphasizing the mystery of what lies just beyond view. The inability to conceive of the whole of our lives and our world is a theme that runs through all of the paintings.
Amidst the noise of modern life, I seek to distill moments of stillness and awe. My work is both an internal meditation and an external celebration - an invitation to pause, notice, and grow. Each painting is a quiet offering: a glimpse into the abundant, layered world we inhabit and the inner gardens we cultivate.
ARTIST STATEMENT - A Reflection on Older Work
Placing specific images in my work has been a way of cataloging my own experiences and making jubilant artwork that is deeply personal. I’ve used, for example, the silhouette of the weed picked for me by my child, the pattern on a particular summer dress, the slats of a railing on a favorite porch, and the light poles on a corner that I miss. Elements in my paintings dance around each other in compositions that mimic the untidy and amorphous character of recollection. Color functions to surprise, to engage, to excite, and to calm. Shapes, opacity, and transparency build my compositions in unexpected ways with elements that overlap and weave in and out of view. Ultimately, the work brings memories together to create a beautiful cataloguing of often disparate elements in one’s psyche. At the same time, memory is inconstant and can morph and change to become something new.
With the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, my celebration of color and the playfulness and joy that was so much on view in my compositions became, I felt, inappropriate. I simply couldn’t make paintings that were such celebrations, and I found that this emotional and artistic roadblock forced a change in my practice. I used those feelings to create new work, different work. The paintings still relate to pre-pandemic themes, but my palette shrank to focus on blues and black with only a small moment of warmth. Though I have always used imagery from my life, my source material became more limited, and my small sliver of the world - my garden, my home - became my source. Amidst the dark, though, there had to be a spark: the use of a vivid yellow against the blues and blacks of the composition became a small moment of joy and an intense illumination in the midst of the storm in which we found ourselves.
This was a more sober and narrative approach with a more pointed use of vivacity. After time spent throwing as much color as I could into compositions as a celebration of the capacity of our minds to weave together all the images of our lives, I am now exploring how a more restrained approach can tell a story that is, perhaps, even more compelling. My paintings have always been inextricably connected to my own life, and I am struck now by the common weight of lived experience that brings all of us together.