What We Know – What They Tell Us #15 Drawing

ARTIST STATEMENT: My objective is as an artist is to create a visual language about transformation that speaks to the viewer directly through the strength and presence of its form and structure. I work with a fundamentally abstract language that is deeply informed by biology and natural history. My current work examines on a very personal level the ways in which advances in science have radically altered our relationship to nature. The drawings conjoin disparate elements, biological, mechanical, and architectural, to create anomalous structures that could be imagined as the outcome of science gone awry. Word fragments that intrude upon the picture plane include both personal observations about gardening and the weather, as well as references to gene technologies that are dramatically transforming food production. PROCESS: Drawing has always played a central role in my creative process. It is as much an end in and of itself as a means for developing ideas for sculptural work. Early in my career I was strongly influenced by the abstract surrealists and expressionists, artists concerned with transformation and the imagination. I developed a process of abstracting from life and creating new, unexpected forms, a process that continues to drive my work. I draw to discover new formal possibilities and make unexpected connections between shapes and ideas. Although many of the forms I work with have their origins in nature and technology, I seek to move beyond the appearance of things, to expose their internal structure and spirit. BIO: Born in Boston, Massachusetts, I received a BA in Fine Arts from Brandeis University and MA/MFA degrees in Printmaking from the University of Iowa. From 1976-77 I taught drawing and design at the University of Tennessee, followed by seven years at the University of Virginia where I taught printmaking and drawing, before settling permanently in Brooklyn, NY. In 2007 I established a studio central NY and currently split my time between the country and the city. I have exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and have work in numerous private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. Residencies include the Cummington Community for the Arts and the Roswell Artist in Residence program in New Mexico.