Artist Statement
I am an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on figurative expressionism working in oil. While I truly enjoy the physicality of expressionism, my artistic interests also include book making, watercolor, printmaking, photography, and other mediums that often play a role in my main body of work. My painting explores color, dramatic mark making, and symbolism, with each piece including an inconspicuous rune or symbol. The distinguishing mark of my artwork can be seen in the juxtaposition between the colorful, loose, gestural marks and the refinement of detail to bring the subject to life.
Ultimately my work is about emotion – the experience of a given moment in time. It is both personal and political and always a careful reflection of the emotions revealed in my subjects. I find inspiration in the work of great and rebellious women artists: Lee Krasner’s abstracted symbols, Alice Neel’s emotive scrutiny, and Jenny Saville’s bold use of color and mark making.
We carry not only the anger and pain of fresh wounds—losing our rights, our humanity, before our eyes—but also the rage of our foremothers and the wave of hope and determination of contemporary culture. We are in a pivotal moment of our struggle against systemic patriarchy. Facing battles to uphold Roe v. Wade, we are being crushed under the weight of an emboldened patriarchal force. My work tributes the fierce response to the deliberate and methodical erasure of women’s rights and is a means of continuing this dialogue. Art can touch us, reach us in places within that mere words cannot.
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
~Vincent Van Gogh.