Artist's Statement
 

I am a figurative oil painter. For over the past ten years I have been working on a series about transformation in the suspended-in-time moments when the mind is somewhere else. I make large-scale oil paintings where we can sometimes see animals and people float through boldly-colored landscapes ranging from surreal and abstract to more academic.


In the painting “Mama” we see a sow nursing her piglets as she heroically soars through a dark sky overlooking the mountains. She appears to be daydreaming or serene as she flies by night and her young dangle in the boundless sky by her teats. As mothers we must play the part of calm in the storm as knowing and the unknowing of the future surrounds us. We may feel alone in the vast as well are far too crowded, in the dark where and when and how we may all land. When we daydream, we are transported. We have an experience, which is often beyond words. We live whole other lives. Minds wander and imagination takes over. The active imagination is at full speed only when the physical body is still. In this way, the sow represents the waiting we must endure while a growth takes place, but also the anticipation and wonder of what the future holds. Encouraging the viewers to mentally put in place the missing or disjointed pieces and imagine for themselves what the future will be. Further, my paintings investigate the idea that transformation and change are inherently bound together with rest and waiting. While some aspects of people and places transform, other aspects lay at rest. While we improve one piece of our lives like family or ourselves, other pieces must remain still. Change involves a balance of activity and passivity. And yet, just as we sometimes seek to escape our present time and space, we inevitably return to it and, for all its complexity, the world continues to offer us hope for growth and renewal.


In 2017, I founded the Artists Off Grid Residency program. I am also the founder of Spark Portraits, where I paint commissioned oil portraits from photographs and life. Currently I live and work in Western MA. I have been awarded public art commissions in New York City and Massachusetts. My artwork has been the subject of numerous solo, major group exhibitions and art fairs in New York City, St Barths, Florida, and California, as well as prestigious private and corporate collections, including Howard Tullman and Dasha Zhukova.