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Artist Statement
I am interested, through my artwork, in presenting the
self, body and space as an unfolding process of movement. Our bodies
and ourselves are unique mysteries to be explored and discovered,
rather than depicted as external objects. I see that we are an ongoing
process of movement and energy - our thoughts, our feelings and
emotions, our dreams, perceptions and magination, everything can be
seen from within as forms of movement. My work seeks to express these
profound qualities of our inner life, both conscious and unconscious,
that are accessed through the primal resources of sensation and
connection to our essential fluid origins, mystery or soul.
My background as a classically trained figure painter is a
foundation for the creative expression of fluid movement as the
language of the body. Often a central figure or several figures are
portrayed moving in relationship to a felt space; fields and masses of
rich vibrant color, light and darkness, form the context out of which
the figure emerges. Here there is no separation between figure and
environment, body and mind, foreground or background. The figures move
in and out of various dimensions and states of embodiment, form and
formlessness, consciousness and unconsciousness.
My art is a unique blending of both figurative and abstract
elements that work together to weave inner landscapes of far-reaching
complexities and dimensions. My art is more modern than purely
traditional. My influences span ancient to contemporary art, my
interest is in creating art about our spirituality and our humanity
that speaks to what is alive within us, beyond the personal or cultural
narrative or story.
I bring to the creative process a variety of abstract
techniques of layering oil paint over acrylic ground with brush and
palette knife. Experimenting with different thickness and
transparencies of paint suggests a coming into a particular form and
dissolving into the vast unknown. Scraping away the external layers
allows what is underneath to be revealed and liberated. I may combine
collage elements, photographs, images of parts of the body - tissue,
bone, blood, molecular and cellular structures, etc. with textures of
sand or clay in with the oil paint which imbues a timeless primordial
atmosphere to the painting.
Through the creative process of painting, I am drawn, as in
meditation, to an internal sense of fluidity and to many possibilities
for personal transformation in the body. This inquiry into the range of
our experience of pure being leads me to explore hidden dimensions of
our implicit responses to life, of our relationships with ourselves, of
our interconnectedness to each other and to the cosmos. The journey of
making art over the years has always been for me an essential pathway
for developing consciousness, widening perception, and expanding
personal evolution.
Drawing on my transformational experiences of recovery from an
injury to the spine, my art is essentially from the spirit and from the
body, of the body. My inspiration is in the value and the aesthetic
sense of biological organismic movements everywhere in nature which are
reflected in the intrinsic worlds of the movement of the body as well.
Movements which curve, spiral, undulate carry the implications of an
emerging awareness of connection, spirituality and freedom. |
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