I explore moments of unexpected or hidden emotion in everyday objects, and express these moments through gestural line drawings, painting, printmaking, and site-specific installation. Thread, rope, drawn and sewn lines are integral elements of paintings and monotypes, as I explore the the essence of time with the ties that bind and break.
Mending, Loose Threads, and Sfizio Series Artist Statement
These series of handstitched collagraph monoprints and etchings explore threads through time linking the past with the future and the nature of time passing. Assembled monoprints use discarded and stitched fabrics as the backdrop for timeless etched marks and stitches, many of which are handsewn onto bits of handmade asian papers. Elements combine to express the quiet essence of time passed slowly - yet fleeting - as loose threads evoke unfinished work and cast ephemeral shadows on the paper below.
Waiting Series Artist Statement
Tally marks, an ancient counting system, emerged in my work as I sat bedside, watching my mentor and friend slowly pass away from pancreatic cancer. Though specific to a particular period, the slow passage of time and unexpected sudden finality speaks to the universal human experience of waiting.
Knot Series Artist Statement
The knot series of hand-drawn, carborundum-printed and screenprinted knots is based on rope I discover washed up on beaches. I document these found lines through photographs, and then transform them into simplified line drawings, carborundum plates, and silkscreens. I explore concepts of time and place: these free-form shapes pre-existed my drawings, themselves having recorded unseen elements, tides or people. Through repetitive and rotated imagery, these drawn knots often anthropomorphize into human-like forms surreptitiously caught dancing, embracing, hiding, or fighting. By stripping the body of its human form and personal identity, but leaving intact gesture and interaction, these works express universal emotions and actions, all while referencing a hidden tangible past with origins in discarded or lost - then re-discovered - objects.