filament & firmament III Drawing

In my current series - Mythography - I use portraiture to explore the ongoing relevance of myth, fairytale, and folklore, casting myself as the mythographer, in every sense of that word. In part, I envisioned this series as a counter-balance to the pop-culture trend of remaking fairytale heroines into kick-ass prince-rescuers - most of whom are, in the end, every bit as one-dimensional as the doe-eyed stereotypes they replaced. From a contemporary feminist perspective, there are certainly problematic elements within many of the original tales from the Ancient Greeks to the Brothers Grimm. However, the answer isn't to throw them out, or to simply rewrite them. I have tried, instead, to examine the complexities of these characters, and to see the ways in which we draw on these enduring stories to imbue our own experiences with meaning, and to see purpose and narrative in what can threaten to feel like chaos or absurdity. I choose to see and reflect the value in that which is old and laden with tradition, rather than always pushing forward into the new. In these portraits I am not interested in using models to illustrate storybook characters, or in faithfully recording the likenesses of contemporary individuals. I want, rather, to explore the meaning that emerges from the layering and interconnectedness of the two. Each portrait begins in conversation with the subject, which continues throughout all stages of the process. We comb through stories together, pulling out images and ideas that have resonance - Beauty's readership, the duality within the werewolf, Psyche's patience rewarded - and gradually weaving the old and the new into an image that speaks to the heart of each individual's relationship to each tale. I may take dozens or even hundreds of photographs for a given portrait before finding one that feels right: one in which the subject seems to have forgotten the camera and slipped into a world of her own. At times I work with as many as ten separate photographs for a single portrait, overlapping and blending aspects of several poses or expressions. I work in oil on canvas and apply paint carefully and meditatively, in many thin layers, often using spirits to erase a layer of paint and reveal what's underneath.