Tamara de Lempicka Red Yellow - Limited Edition 1 Print

My primary theme is Art about Art.  This is largely informed by working as visiting artist in Europe and Asia, particularly time spent in Japan. This encouraged me to make connections among art works and artists of ostensibly disparate media and historical eras with different social, cultural and political concerns. As a research fellow in Japan at Tokyo National University of Arts and Music, I developed an appreciation for the complex relationship between high art of Japan’s Edo period and popular art of manga and anime in contemporary Japan.  I could see this connection in Murakami’s concept of Superflat, evident in his cartoon imagery as Mr. Dob and his mythical patterns of human flowers. I started working on Warhol imagery after seeing a portrait show at the Jewish Museum, New York.  My colors, drawings, patterns could apply to Murakami, Warhol, Ingres, Renaissance art, Greek art, in a playful way. “What I love most is money,” Warhol, became a pattern of dollars behind both men. My Blue Murakami is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. I started making silkscreens in Ireland, on a Visiting Artists Grant.  An Irish artist, printing in Cork, suggested my switching to silkscreen. This path-changing encounter with a European artist while I was working on Asian imagery is truly emblematic of the international connections of my work. In 2013 I saw an amazing exhibition of Tamara de Lempicka’s work at La Pinacotheque in Paris. I made a variable edition (20) about her in different colors and details. In London there was a Lichtenstein exhibition at Tate Modern. I noticed that Lichtenstein’s female bust had the same hairstyle as Lempicka. Both women look self-assured. Powerful Women. I silkscreened them together. Both an Ingres princess showing at the Fricke, New York and a Canova sculpture at the Louvre teamed up with Japanese manga. My Art and Justice Green puts 1950’s Paris proud woman dancer with Lichtenstein’s picture of Art. Warhol’s use of colored variations of a subject in a series sets my themes as well. My Kiss at L’Hotel de Ville Grey Yellow was featured in a June 2015 New York Times article. !n 2016 I have shown at “Art and Justice,” Genk, Belgium, “Images of Women,” Mayor’s Gallery in Boston, “Women Printmakers,” Japan American Center, Doizaki Gallery, Los Angeles. I was awarded an artist residency at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris in 2016.