Scavenged decorative imagery drives and informs my work.
Over three decades ago questions of domesticity became paramount. As a painter I searched for a mark that felt true and in keeping with my fundamental abstract aesthetic. These concurrent preoccupations led me to discover wallpaper as both the material and the gesture I sought. I became enamored by the way wallpapers mimetic elements seamlessly merged into abstraction. Wallpaper, literally a piece of cultural fabric, has become a major source of both content and formal concerns in my paintings.
With collage, paint, and a variety of printing methods, I apply patterns as one might use a brush stroke. In an abstract construct a narrative seed is planted with these ready-made designs, ripe with suggestion and association. It is a playful back and forth process of discovery and construction. I’m searching for an evocative form in a believable space. These scavenged and collected materials bring a history, texture, physicality and sometimes humor to the work.
In the last two years, the emergent form has become a figure. During the pandemic, a time of solitude and reflection, I took note that this figure harks back to the elaborately costumed women I painted in the 80’s. The figures in the new work are holding objects- a gift or an offering. During this difficult period, I came to view my artistic practice as a gift to myself and an offering to others.
Over three decades ago questions of domesticity became paramount. As a painter I searched for a mark that felt true and in keeping with my fundamental abstract aesthetic. These concurrent preoccupations led me to discover wallpaper as both the material and the gesture I sought. I became enamored by the way wallpapers mimetic elements seamlessly merged into abstraction. Wallpaper, literally a piece of cultural fabric, has become a major source of both content and formal concerns in my paintings.
With collage, paint, and a variety of printing methods, I apply patterns as one might use a brush stroke. In an abstract construct a narrative seed is planted with these ready-made designs, ripe with suggestion and association. It is a playful back and forth process of discovery and construction. I’m searching for an evocative form in a believable space. These scavenged and collected materials bring a history, texture, physicality and sometimes humor to the work.
In the last two years, the emergent form has become a figure. During the pandemic, a time of solitude and reflection, I took note that this figure harks back to the elaborately costumed women I painted in the 80’s. The figures in the new work are holding objects- a gift or an offering. During this difficult period, I came to view my artistic practice as a gift to myself and an offering to others.
