STATEMENT OF WORK

My work encompasses single-session observational paintings and longer exploratory projects involving abstraction, installation, performance, serialized painting, and ephemeral art. Transition and change are recurrent themes, evoking fugitive, vulnerable, ambivalent states. An overarching theme in my work is a contemporary type of memento mori. During the pandemic I situated my abstract art works in my (former) garden or studio and painted them from observation. I view these “paintings of paintings” as a type of memento mori or vanitas. My use of symbolism is often layered—a kind of idyllic darkness or pleasant melancholy.

I was trained in the tradition of figurative painting, beginning my career with large scale canvasses of life-size figures, mainly performative self-portraits. Around 2012 my art practice moved toward surrealistic dreamscapes, combining (semi) abstraction with figuration and painted-on objects such as un-stretched canvas, postcards and inkjet prints, often yielding one-off series or ongoing projects. I moved from the easel to a flat table to study the different reactions from the ‘alchemy’ of paint. In 2018 I began to paint plein-air when I relocated to New Mexico.

Since 2016, my figurative painting practice has expanded to include the incorporation of sentimental or “souvenir” objects from my own life as well as found vintage items. Through installation projects and conceptually driven series, I rework these non-traditional art elements from female and queer LGBTQIA+ perspectives to alter or subvert their superficial significance in an attempt to question the patriarchy and assumed societal roles.