STATEMENT OF WORK

For me, painting is an act of personal cosmography drawn from years of nocturnal plein air painting centered on the intimate, cloistered space of my urban backyard in Montreal. The glacial topography of my childhood– erratics, drumlins, and eskers of Central Massachusetts – also informs the visual language of my paintings while celestial objects counterpoint the earthly forms. 

I maintain two interconnected painting practices. My watercolor practice operates in a "diffuse mode," which allows for quick, spontaneous exploration. It functions as a catalyst for idea generation, resembling a state of relaxed, almost automatic drawing. When I switch to oil painting, I enter a "focused mode," selecting compositions from my watercolors to reinterpret in oil while exploring color, opacity, transparency, and line. Fragmented, undulating shapes, calligraphic lines, and an earthy palette define my paintings. Their textured surfaces heighten the materiality of paint. 

In both my watercolours and oil paintings, I am drawn to perspectives that are askew, unexpected vantage points, and the evocative potential of familiar yet ambiguous forms. Influenced by feminist and neurodiverse perspectives, I take inspiration from Emily Dickinson's line "Tell all the truth but tell it slant." The painters Marsden Hartley and Etel Adnan influence my work through their unique reimagining of landscape—Hartley with his tender yet crude materiality, and Adnan with her bold, palette knife abstractions that distill landscapes into essential color and form.

At the heart of my painting practice is the fundamental question: How does one locate oneself within physical and metaphorical spaces?