Shift

I’m concerned with the passage of time compelling the body to shift states.  My intention is to find physical means to represent the intangible emotions that emerge within this process.  My work with the figure connects me to a long tradition, both daunting and inspiring.  To it, I bring my objects, or rather my talismans, studio specimens of the natural world.  Entering into familiar landscapes, they are companions on the journey.

Inner Narrative

I think of the emotional life as a strange accretion of influences; things seen, heard and smelled, which attach themselves to specific memories, particular fears or joys. It is an intimate and private thing, occurring primarily within the frame of my own mind, until it is released into images.

In my paintings I am interested both in mirroring the way connections between specific images and emotions are made, and in developing a chain of connections that describes a larger condition. A recent body of work explored fertility and the loss of fertility. The paintings develop almost randomly, perhaps starting from a printed image or a wash of color and texture, and then adding an object, or a figure. I think of the surrealist drawing games of Frottage and the Exquisite Corpse. One step leads to another in these games. Out of a chance texture or fold in the paper, something deeper may be discovered, a surprising thing, a new connection. Another group of paintings begins with images of landscapes: air, water, ice and rock. Insects and other actions create small dramas against the vastness of these landscapes. They speak of fragility and the intrusion of disorder.

The imagery I use is personal, a visual repertoire gleaned from childhood memory, and things from daily life that snag on my peripheral vision: a dried salamander found in the windshield wiper, a fly discarded on the windowsill, one flower singled out of a familiar mass. The paintings often juxtapose an idealized or invented landscape with an almost scientific study of the natural objects I have collected. I am following the shifting focus of the mind, which can catch on a vivid reality then drift into an amorphous place, all within the same inner narrative. The insects and flowers are sometimes lovely things, elements of bliss, and at other times they are full of dread and decay. It is most intriguing to me when they can encompass both extremes.

My work is small, sometimes miniature. It requires the viewer to come close, to play out a physical intimacy that reflects the intimacy of the subject. The paintings seem quiet, but are full of disquiet. There is an unnerving feeling that what is seen in parts may mean the opposite when understood as a whole. We flicker between passions, but are left with a story, an emotional narrative, that only becomes visible through the slow accumulation of layers.




June 2011