Nothing short of a warm welcome and a strong cup Print

For over 20 years my work has explored the unseen connections, languages and relationships that form daily life. Everyday I relate, respond, and intertwine with the world around me, often incongruently as I am seen and labeled by it. I see these interactions as overlapping layers; as connecting lines and forms. They build upon each other, creating a life made up of days and minutes and years of things that cannot be seen but foundationally define who I am, whether in my eyes or others. My work turns these into layers of texture and color interplaying with one another – hiding and exposing. As an artist I view creating as a spiritual practice, a mode of seeking deeper understanding of things we can’t quite reach. Much of art history concerns itself with our fundamental understanding of the sublime, sometimes in abstracted and conceptual ways and sometimes in the capturing and rendering of unfettered realism. I find that art, both in its creation and absorption, can reconcile us to parts of who we are that have been mislaid and forgotten in this tired world. It is within this framework that I have burrowed into my career as an artist. I seek to expose and explore the unseen that surrounds us, whether emotional, spiritual or otherwise. Throughout my work bits of misappropriated conversation and misunderstood semantics challenge the use of language as the primary form of communication and force the examination of concept apart from word. Through texture, line, and color I layer narrative and metaphor. The language of my paintings has built into a vocabulary of form over the years, utilizing the narrative and the obscure in tandem. My work ranges in size and medium as conceptually necessary moving from pocket-size to wall-size fluidly. My current direction examines the delicate relationship between the individual and the cultural systems that surround and entangle common living. The paintings are built of layers of forms and colors, interplaying with one another and sometimes completely overshadowing each other. The resulting struggles are muted, subdued and tempered, with much of the movement happening just below the surface. Within the work vibrant colors push back against the surface. They float in and out of the composition mirroring our interactions with our own surroundings. The pieces explore the nature of how we relate to the overlay of cultural norms and expectations that cushion our small daily behaviors.