Artist Statement

Over the past few years I’ve shifted from developing images focused on a preconceived idea or subject to focussing on the process of painting itself, allowing images to emerge. For me this process is one of simultaneous observation and participation, adding and subtracting, layering and peeling away, approaching and retreating. Often, before I start painting, it feels as though the image, although unknown to me at the outset, is somehow already there. Not unlike an archeological dig, my job is to show up to participate in its reveal.

In the summer of 2019 I started experimenting with laying single colors of paint on small blank canvases. The activity, centered on the action of spreading paint and color without any real thought or discernment, was very meditative and grounding. As the stack of these canvases grew so did my curiosity about how they related to each other. Light sifting into the studio onto these small blocks of color created new shapes and tints in their shadows and prompted more combining and recombining of these compact elements. Stacking and tilting them woke up my childhood love of geometry as triangles and parallelograms appeared. At that point I moved from using small gallery wrapped canvases to small deep cradled wood panels and wood blocks with crisper edges. Having more to play with, new forms and new surfaces emerged with ever changing light effects.

My recent work develops intuitively, helped along by the endless possibilities in orienting the square panels. Once I've settled on an orientation, I return to the assemblage as a whole and go back in with new lines and shapes to add to the developing story.

Perspective, relationship, and tromp l’oeil drive my curiosity and my work. An ongoing interaction between an arrangement of wood elements and angles of light fuels a cycle of invention and reinvention. This process inspires a conversation around how the elements relate, what surprising connections might be made, and what assumptions might be challenged and upended – much like a conversation with a good friend can bring you to new philosophical territory and unexpected ideological destinations. We just don’t know what we’ll find until we get there, and we’re compelled to keep moving forward: The uncertainty of the destination draws me in and entices me to keep looking.

For example, my piece ‘Reconciling Perspectives’, has a central wooden block with clear block ‘windows’ that reveal distinct perspectives of the same object. Each window affords a limited view of a single side of the interior block and its surroundings. Turning the piece reveals more windows and multiple facets of the interior block. The work is a metaphor for the way our vision and the vision of our cultural context are limited. However, taking a step back and encountering other perspectives can broaden our own and help us to recognize the common connections we share at the core.