While I do not copy any particular style, it seems fitting to acknowledge that I have been inspired by other artists' works, most notably within the movements of Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, and Dada. Pattern and rhythm have a unique capacity to transport us into altered states of consciousness, and thus play an important role in many artistic movements. And I could never paint without music! Science plays an important role in my work, as a personal interest. I try to reconcile my respect for deep factual truth with my longing for meaning and spirtuality. The visual language of science, expressed in prosaic diagrams and illustrations, calls out for a visual poetry that embodies its potential and spirit.

The series of artworks which includes maps uses the maps' lyrical and expressive lines as a textural base, visible in gouged areas or collaged fragments. The factual truth that the topographic lines refer to, abstractly, gives way to a further abstraction: that of fictional and temporary political lines. I create my own personal abstraction of emotion, an ephemeral individual layer to join with these other fictions. In other layers, a different rhythm and order is superimposed - the gouged pattern of the wax, the abraded/dissolved patterns in the exterior surface, the grid of the metal leaf or map applications. The metal leaf reflects its surroundings, such that they become a part of the artwork. They are profoundly different in varied lighting conditions and physical surroundings. A variety of layers are juxtaposed, just as we have various layers of thought and emotion flowing concurrently through our minds. The eye goes in and out of the various layers, perceiving them at times as separate, at times as a whole. In the Oroborous pieces, I have the additional content of the pins arranged in a circular order, counterclockwise, one to one hundred. The circle refers to cycles, the numbers, arriving to a perfect 100 as they do, to a sense of completion. The direction refers to reflection on the past, coming around to the present in its completion.

The use of maps in my work, and particularly topographical maps, reflects a concern for nature that goes beyond an intellectual stance. Pins, in my idiosyncratic iconography, are repeated in a pattern to signify the repetition of thoughts, and particularly memories of painful events. The use of pins becomes particularly excruciating in the pieces where the wax is tinted to resemble flesh - the flesh through which a watershed flows. I have chosen maps of places that hold personal significance to me, due to various life events. As artists, we are given the remarkable power to transmute pain into beauty. Some have said that the perception of beauty is rooted in an awareness of our own mortality. Perhaps this is so. My current thematic interests are landscape and memory, science, mortality, and eternity. My current visual interests are largely in translucent and reflective materials. These reflect the light and the environment around them, although they do make it extremely difficult to reproduce my work accurately. I have used a great deal of metal leaf and thick, translucent encaustic; not shown is a series of works in cast concrete, which are rather similar in appearance to the prior works, but incorporate glass beads and fiber optic lighting. The last two years' artworks include Braille text, which incorporates a level of coded meaning, in addition to providing a visual pattern that resonates with my other pieces. The implication is that the audience's view is being directed inward. I enjoy hiding secrets within my work, feeling that the more gradual blossoming of meaning enriches the viewer's experience over time.


Statement for Circles exhibiton, 2003

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