STATEMENT OF WORK

My work is a meditation on nature, the universe, and our small place within it. To describe the interconnections between the terrestrial and the celestial realms, I draw inspiration from my garden in the Western Catskills. From here, I shift from the specificities of this pastoral landscape to the ecological, the earthly, and the cosmic. I intertwine representations of plants and other life forms, geological references, and cosmic symbols such as spirals and stars as I consider nature through a fantastical or metaphysical lens.

Building upon the idea of interconnection, sculptural forms, painting, and craft techniques fold into one another. My three-dimensional pieces are coated with a roughly textured modeling compound, evoking the transformation of mud into stone. Watered-down paints pool and thin across surfaces, accentuating their topography. In my unstretched and sewn paintings, pigments soak into the raw canvas, embedding image into material and creating another interplay of color and form. In each piece, I emphasize the handmade—shapes are intentionally askew, paint drips, and the approach is loose and intuitive.

A series of kite-shaped paintings furthers the terrestrial-to-celestial metaphor by featuring shapes and colors that allude to birds and stars. The kites hover between categories: art and craft, object and painting. They relate to geometric abstraction, the Pattern and Decoration movement, and the history of shaped paintings. By combining memories of kite-making with my father and the quilt patterns of my grandmothers, I connect to generations of artists and sewers in my family. A kite aloft connects earth and sky while embodying the potentiality and precariousness of life.