Artist's Statement
Art has always been a priority in my life; I never decided to become an artist, it seems I simply always was. I create art because I must. Once a nighttime painter, working only when the moon was high in the sky and the world was quiet, I have adapted my style now to accommodate a full, rich life that must include studio time. It is in these moments of solitude with my brushes and paint that I feel most alive. I create on canvas and/or paper during these moments, but I am continuously creating in my mind. I paint most of my pictures and write most of my stories and poems in my mind long before I ever commit them to canvas or paper.
Recently I have been focusing on the idea of reinvention - channeling ancestral energy, the energy of the natural world, and the energy that I’m infused with by cities and urban environments. Everything is inspiration - a discarded receipt on a Helsinki street, swaying grasses on the dunes on South Carolina’s Isle of Palms, the homes of relatives in small towns that we visited when I was a child.
My goal for 2022 new works is to capture something about the bonds of family heritage, the wild spaces of the rural American South, (where growing up can be an almost feral experience – I spent the bulk of my childhood in the woods) and the influence of urban areas, where I find myself reinvented as an artist and a person.
How do we bridge such diversity, from our family heritage, our raising, and where we find ourselves as adults? How do we come so far from where we started, and where our ancestors began? My new work explores this concept, seeking to create a bridge between past and future with the present moment while I continue my foray into abstraction and blends of abstraction and realism.