Artists Statement

My art work ranges from large scale paintings, to small intimate mixed media collages. The larger works are often done on un-stretched canvases tacked to the wall. Giving each work a sense of movement and the uncanny feeling of skin or hide. Photographs have often been an important element for me creating my paintings. Not because I desire to be a photographer, but because certain photos draw me to them. I enjoy using photos as a visual tool whether it is for inspiration, to interpret, re-invent or to create an environment for the photo.

My larger works are intentionally life-size and incorporate a photograph of the subject, which is altered by scanning, enlarging and incorporating it directly to the canvas so it can be painted. The works are a combination of processes that are integrated to create a complete mixed media painting.

This body of work explores painting as collage, creating a struggle between the mediums. In searching for a way to do this, I created work after work until there was a connection that felt like it was integrated. The outcome is life-size mixed media work that uses a variety of materials, methods, and conventions creating an intersection for the occurrence of meaning. The materials range from traditional studio mediums including oil, graphite and wax, to antique items found in markets and antique dealers.

Having realized this integration, I searched for a subject matter and found it in my own family. I paid my parents a visit and raided my mother’s photo albums searching through many boxes looking for family I knew and had never known. It was fascinating to listen to her tell me what she knew and did not know of the family members I’d found. It was also personally intriguing to think how I would interpret the known relatives versus the unknown and the challenge it could present in the creation of works of art.
Ultimately, the content and narrative behind each photo would have to determine the final outcome, the materials and technique following the real and fictitious narratives embedded in the old photograph.

The smaller collage works are content driven, but I use contrasting imagery demonstrating the notion of “layers of time”. Cropped images, my own drawings, photos, theatrical settings, memory, apparitions through transparency, revealed pencil lines, mixed media, and vast scenic settings also play a central and dramatic role in my works. My works and their themes address many of the thoughts, memories, fears, and experiences that I deal with in my own constructed realities.

“Cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing”
Roland Barthes