Artist Statement

“Only Connect…”

—Epigraph from Howards End by EM Forster

I am interested in what’s unsaid but understood, the inherent interconnectedness of shared life experiences even between complete strangers, and what influences us to gain awareness and feel real and present when we envision ourselves through intro- or retrospection. My work is a celebration of contextual references, landscapes—both real and unreal, physical and emotional, that make up our lives.

As an artist and writer, I am interested in language and its various expressions—word choice, form, line, texture, color—and how communication is successful or potentially misinterpreted based on either my or the audience’s experience, each valid. I imagine the space between myself, the creator, and the canvas: that space is a poem written by myself and by the viewer. Many of my works have companion poems as an additional way to connect with my audience.

My work takes many forms—from landscapes based on memory images and abstracted flashes of color and vibrations that surge off the paper to figurative representations of found items and rocks. I am obsessed with the everyday object as a symbol or vessel for holding meaning and truth, giving the intangible energy and weight that you can hold in your hands or hold your gaze. Sometimes subtle, sometimes harsh or brash—the line or brush stroke is a connection from me to the viewer. Our collective or individual emotional states are unreal, an illusion. I attempt to elicit feeling and construct a sense of space where memories continue to live and evolve.

My own emotional vulnerability is offered for the taking—the last walk with a beloved pet, the grief of betrayal, love lost or gained, or the meaning found in what seemed so ordinary at first. In my work, I’m giving our feelings, and our experiences a collective sense of context or place for what only exists internally to become external and shared. I’m always trying to answer the question, “Where exactly does our emotion or experience live once it has happened?”