Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

My practice continuously develops from life events. I have been investigating conceptually the exploration and implication of a sense of limbo – ma – existing between absence and presence. Therefore, the subject of my paintings is stimulated by a sense of livingness, and by contrast, its opposite. I choose to paint because the medium allows me to interrogate a type of skin that psychologically charges spaces.

I make both large and small-scale works, but in the large works, I pay attention to the possibilities of human scale in relation to the structures. By scaling down the work, I focus on fragmenting a physical intensity; giving a high consideration to mark-making such as how stains, washes, and veils of light evoke emotions and trigger the conceptual reactionary process. Abstraction denies the viewer an immediate understanding of the work but lets them project their own psychology onto it. The process of building an image up and then destroying it is part of the tragedy. Decomposition of memory is the process of charging and creating destabilizing objects in relative space.

I reference the traditional form that metamorphosis into the contemporary. By creating a dynamic interplay between painting and sculpture, I animate the overseen—this engages my work in an architectonic dialogue. Digesting states of mind manifests the optical in ritual process, thoughts become visible. Light is an indication exposing the topography, revealing the transparency of pigment, pushing the sublime.

While at Headlands

While at Headlands I am going to be investigating natural light to expose the topography of my paintings. The changing moments of light, pushing through large-scale stretched muslin, will reveal and conceal. I anticipate responding to the historic environment and the translation of mark from surface to space.