ARTIST STATEMENT:

My mother is an artist. She may have taught me now to draw my shoes before teaching me how to tell tie them, and I believe she introduced me to expressionist painter Clifford Styll before Clifford the Big Red Dog. I grew up making art and loving art, but in my teens chose to pursue theatre over visual art as my main creative pursuit. My path in acting was deep and moderately successful, but not fully satisfying, and I have returned to art-making in my thirties.

Still, I continue to see the world through an actor’s perspective, and I carry that sense of performance into the canvases I paint. I am interested in the intersection between character and text – inner and outer dialogues—and the hidden meanings behind faces and quotations. I want to create scenes or portraits that can reveal stories or relationships for the viewer to discover and create. In this work, I sometimes use borrowed images-- often from children’s culture-- as a tool to question what may be our expected perceptions of things. In my process, I often enjoy collaborating with other artists (another element I take from theatre), and find that ideas sometimes flow better within the structure of shared creation.

As for my current preoccupation with popular music, and with Wonder Woman as a central character --- I guess that Wonder Woman speaks to my interest in representing the American Every Woman, and also is a playful way to position myself in the work. Song lyrics and titles are an entry point because of their mass awareness, their emotional content, and a personal history in self-discovery through pop music.