acrylic and collage on canvas, 20” x16”, 2018, $325.00
I like to think that my work has a light side and a serious side. The light is humble, everyday inspirations, such as memories of cartoons from childhood, or squeezing toothpaste. My perhaps more serious source of inspiration is nature. What fascinates me visually in the realm of nature ranges from luminous microscopic views, to a walk in the shade of looming trees. The visual experiences from nature that emerge in my paintings escape verbal definition, remaining unnameable.Yet in a way, by seeing them resurface from memory in a painting, I come closer to understanding them. What words cannot express, image is able to capture. What is more, time is arrested in a painting, giving one a better look at what is indescribable. In all of my work, I hope that the viewer can find something familia, as well as something completely unfamiliar. The familiar may be how the light in a painting looks like a neon sign in a window, or how the atmosphere of a work somehow feels like a humid environment from one’s past. The unfamiliar is any object or quality that exists only in a particular work. Having something unique to them allows for my painting-worlds to assert their autonomy in the world that we live in. They become their own microcosms within our macrocosm. They take on an unexpected reality. At the same time, by evoking our experiences, they remain related to our world. They can have a foot in this realm and a foot somewhere else entirely, a feat only possible in art.