Since receiving a degree in sculpture in 2004 my artwork has returned to the two-dimensional. Sculpture drew me in during my undergraduate years because it was an incredible challenge that was immensely rewarding. Working three-dimensionally gave my flat works a sense of the object that was previously unknown to me. Sculpture and installation challenged my thoughts on art as it pertained to my work in ways that merely painting could not. Today my work carries traces of those years making sculpture. My understanding of the object, the thing that is to be painted, is seen in a more three-dimensional, physical way. This is the sculptor in me.
My work is a spiritual quest; art making challenges the artist and the viewer to learn more about the self, and I believe this to be an important aspect of my work. I am drawn to the work of Anselm Keifer, Enrique Martinez Celaya, and Kiki Smith; these are artists whose work spans both two and three dimension, whose work seeks to find some fundamental truths about the meaning of art and life, and who are able to create work that is transcendent. One of my goals as an artist is to become alchemist: to create art that is able to transcend the materials used in its making and to become a somatic experience for myself and the viewer. Both Keifer and Martinez Celaya make work about their personal histories, but these extremely personal works become the means for the viewer to access fundamental truths about humanity. This journey into making work about self-discovery has led me to books such as Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm, in which she talks about the place where the violence of nature merges with the sacred. Other texts such as Charles A. Riley's The Saints of Modern Art and numerous works by Jeanette Winterson have proved important research for my work into the subjects of spirituality, nature, and poetics.
As a painter, I am interested in the work of Francis Bacon. He was able to paint images of objects centered within an abstract space, and to infuse violence and passion within the object that transcends the painted image. Other painters who inspire my work are Richard Diebenkorn and the early work of Wolf Kahn because of the way they approached themes of the land and nature, the way they handled color and paint, and the division of space on the picture plane. My paintings of late have become increasingly abstracted, and I feel that this is tied to the need for transcendence. The painted object begins to express emotion rather than the conveyance of objectiveness. The elemental themes of my paintings have been wrought with tension and violent color, and it is to these masters of color and abstraction that I look for guidance in developing successful work.
The shifting politics of place and the ways in which this plays out onto the body of the land is something that informs my work. I have lived abroad in Paris and Florence, and in multiple states in America, and the language of the land has often been the object of my work. The ways in which nature informs us as human beings, and how nature and landscape are altered by human interference are recurrent themes. My paintings and drawings are often about nature as it exists in and our of urban landscapes and how this nature relates to our human bodies. It is important that my work speak not only to an American audience, but also to citizens of the world.
Cycles, Systems, Structures Statement
One-hundred-seven Days in Paris Statement