STATEMENT OF WORK

I make paintings of imagined landscapes populated with bodies of water, portals, and female figures engaged in moments of communion with each other and with the natural world. Grounded in figurative and landscape elements, my work resides on the edge of abstraction where transparency and overlap complicate recognizable forms. Colors shift abruptly, figures appear as silhouettes or outlines, and shapes blur into ambiguity.

In Evening Primrose (2024), a pale orange outline depicts a figure tucked against the curve of an oversized flower. A pool of water shifts from purple to pink to chartreuse, encircled by abstract shapes hinting at foliage or flowers. Above, a striated deep blue sky reinforces the shallow nature of the pictorial space. In I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing (2023), a mermaid kneels before a large black mirror and a transparent butterfly intersects her tail. Another figure appears inside an arch or portal, and in the foreground claw-like waves encircle a vibrant pool. Beauty and a sense of danger exist in tandem within these works, and destabilizing elements offset moments of calm.

Instead of portraying literal places, I view the landscapes in my work as reflections of a state of consciousness—an understanding of personal power and vulnerability, concepts central to my own experience of motherhood. Mermaids appear frequently and are, for me, a symbol merging femininity with the natural world. I am interested in how motherhood has an animal-like quality, how it connects me spiritually to the earth and to other mothers. I see this connection to other mothers as a spiritual presence in the work, connecting the figures to the act of creating life and to the presence of a Mother Earth spirit.

I seek to be surprised by the work I make. I don’t work from sketches or photographs; instead, I begin by blocking in areas of color and shape that give me something to react to. I use the horizontal shape of a pool to begin imagining a scene reminiscent of the real world yet grounded in color and brushstrokes. My work is in conversation with contemporary painters who push figuration to its limits like Katherina Olschbaur, Cecily Brown, and Marlene Dumas; I am also deeply influenced by historic painters like Bonnard, Matisse, and Redon. My intention is for my work to feel tied to both past and present, and to feel at risk of dissolving while holding still.

The figures in my work are hard to pin down. Without faces, and with bodies formed with lines and messy brushstrokes, it is often unclear whether they face the viewer or turn their backs. In art history, the female figure is easy to “consume.” In my own work, I prefer to have her present but not fully knowable. She has a mermaid tail; she has a babe in arms; she is a butterfly; she is the sky. I don’t seek a narrative, but rather, a sense of urgency, desire, and trepidation. My paintings posit motherhood and the motherbody as a nature-state, one that is dangerous but ripe with possibility.