Two Art Statements

I.

1. Painting of an experienced event and emotions that are still being felt, i.e. part of the on-going experience that the artist only partially or very little understands and yet has.

No distance from—thus can erect pictorially no boundaries. This painting will allow the artist at a later date to understand something that is too painful to grasp now. Such as the fear of recurrence of this pain—rather than the acceptance of the experience as a part of life, which now proceeds again with all its possibilities of pleasure, as well as pain.

2. Painting of a memory of a composition, composed picture of an event that has passed and is over and has been remembered was a scene—as a picture, waiting to be painted because the artist understands what it means and it is separate from her.

Like little children—interior beings turn to pictures when thoughts and feelings exceed language—just consider pictographs and early primitive art works on rock and in caves.

II.

IDEA

My work explores universal truths by creating characters in paint and telling a story through the eyes of the omniscient artist with fabric, drawing, and other media. As art is the universal language, understood by all; then art pertains to characteristics of all or the whole. One of my themes is the importance of family. Often the mother figure serves as the central reference point in a painting of kinship relationships. But in another painting we see the father figure as a tormentor while other work portrays the father figure as a peace maker and also one as an individual struggling in a non-supportive world. Their character is often different from the one society sees as an ideal role model. My paintings shine a light on our human condition so that connections between us, the land, and our families can be evaluated for what they are: spiritually good, destructively evil and/or some blend of these two intentions. For instance, in one work a neighbor is seen as an enemy in a world that is increasingly giving up the idea of family (community of neighbors) by substituting it with the world of capitalism: career, aloneness, power, money. The loss of touch with our soul is replaced with efficiency, control, ambition. I also paint wild animals because I believe that they are prescient and express emotions in the wild where they act without human constraints and self-consciousness.

SUBJECT

There are a lot of houses in my paintings. House has been defined as a family, including descendants and ancestors. A house used to be seen as a household or holding a family. Home can equal a sense of place, belonging. However, the word house/home has come to mean merely a structure to be lived in or used as a bank account; crowding out the older, traditional connotations of domestic comforts and family. The subject of family is expressed in adhered cloth that has a domestic history and spiritual vibrations. My collaged style reinforces a concept of over-laying memories that constantly inform our view of ourselves and our world. The concept of family emphasizes the importance of memory (past), intuition (present) and premonition (future.) My work explores the popular sayings that the fabric of any society is the family, looks at the fabric of our lives and references fabricating our houses and ourselves; exposing the struggle between the pull of the wild with the pursuit of domestic security. I contrast studied realism with surrealism; the conforming side of people (domestic fabrics) with the instinctual almost excessive impulsiveness behaviors of the wild (brushed colors.)

PROCESS

I paint fast, depicting life as immediate in a graphically simplified style. My goal is to capture the spontaneous and intuitive in paint before it is corrupted by reason. My paintings are collaged with fabrics and found objects. I use, in an immediate direct way, gestural brush strokes with black paint graphically outlining subjects and colors are primary or straight from the tube. My painting titles are narrative, denoting a conversation between artist and viewer. The images themselves are episodic, like a scene within a narrative where the main story is not fully developed. People are portrayed unmasked; as opposed to showing the persona or public personality which I see as a disguise and a pretense to satisfy the demands of the situation or to hide one's intentions and not representative of the inner personality of the individual. It is like an x-rayed psychological skeleton of a person, feeling, event, and/or relationship where the dye is cast and will color the future. Household linens trigger memories. I am a cloud-watcher, seeker of signs. Birds that visit my studio and angels which I see in clouds, populate my compositions. Intuition is my usual source for making choices, for example which color to use. My paintings visualize what can be seen as a scene from a story, as the concept of the story allows us to see ourselves and understand our lives and make personal choices.

PAINTER

For a long time I didn't know why, only that I had to paint. Only now am I able to present my art, ironically having fulfilled my domestic obligations. However, the strength of many years is that it has put some distance between me and specific relationships, allowing me to better understand what I am about, where I am going and have the time to write about it.