Balancing Act Painting

Born Fall River, Massachusetts USA email: I make paintings of women, the sea, mysterious encounters and uncommon places. These works occupy a cerebral, mythic landscape, full of reality and dreams. The introspective girls and women in my paintings make us ask, “What are they thinking?” Their placement in such lush, enigmatic settings questions, “Why are we here?” ​ The scale of much of my recent work projects the feeling of being able to physically enter the painting’s terrain and become part of the narrative. The women are life-sized, or larger than life. The viewpoint is often just outside the picture plane – one more step and you are inside. Most of the settings of my paintings are places of reflection and contemplation. I have always felt the ocean to be a magical place. I am stirred by the sea’s endless sky, the perfect light, the gentle dunes, and the ancient stone walls that crisscross New England coastlines. ​ Dance has always intrigued me. I work to music, and the placement of figures in each painting is a kind of visual and psychological choreography. Birds, especially seabirds, have long been choreographed into my work, sometimes as companions, other times as avatars of change, growth, or escape. The conjunction of women and birds placed in landscapes suffused with mystery evokes an especially vivid dream.