Offerings Painting

The perfect day for me is a day in my studio. The time I spend there is never wasted. It's a space where I feel the most fulfilled and the most true to myself. I am fascinated with collecting and creating from found materials. When I start a painting, I’m often inspired by the texture of the wood, the grain, nail holes, burn marks, weathering, the most unique qualities of what I’m working with. Giving new life to discarded objects and finding the beauty in what is broken is an inspiring process. While the material is often the starting point, it becomes about finding a sense of unity between material and image, a space where imperfections, scars, beauty and darkness can all coexist. Combining the warmth of distressed wood canvases with elusive and radiant figures creates an unlikely duality. The mood is peaceful and haunting, perfect and flawed. A lot of people ask me who my women are. They’re not specific people as much as they are representations of thoughts, feelings, ideas and experiences. So many stories go through my mind as I work- she feels safe, she tries to let go, she emerges from a storm, she wants to be at peace, she descends under the weight, she pushes and pulls- internal battles that are familiar to all of us. In the end, the stories fall away as I look to feel and create a sense of balance.