Welcome
and thanks for visiting my online art gallery of contemporary art work.
I proudly present here my oil paintings, acrylic
paintings and a number of art work done with variable mixed medias.
Artist Statement
Everyday Americans are bombarded with images,
information, and advertisements. I believe they desensitize us visually
and intellectually, making us less aware of our own individual creative visions and truths.
Often, we rush through our daily activities without questioning, why?
I am a constant questioner, and my work is a visual arts exploration of my own
search for truth. It is my way of communicating the greater ideas we often
overlook in everyday life.
As an artist, I am driven to create and visually
interpret both the human condition and the infinite variety of individual artistic
experiences. My dissatisfaction with our societal structures and lack of
equality fuels my passion for artistic visual questioning.
Research in Jungian psychology and Feminist
theory has influenced my thinking. Many of the themes in my art work are created
around Jung's ideas of the unconscious, archetypes, symbols, and the process
of individuation. I am interested in the growth of consciousness and self-awareness.
My work in women's studies has allowed for an interesting intertwining
of these ideas with representations of gender roles and reproduction as
I explore what it means to become an independent woman in contemporary
American society. The comparison of human and natural life cycles creates
an overarching theme between the works.
Resources for my imagery come from a variety
of places: family photographs, magazines, doctor's pamphlets, ancient symbols,
diagrams, nature, my sister's poetry, etc. I also use a variety of materials
including acrylic paint, oil paint, found objects, stitching and fabric,
other mixed media and collage materials. The dripping and splathering of
paint invoke an element of chance and spontaneity in the art work. This allows
the artistic work to be both a reaction to cultural symbolism and a feeling captured
in the moment.
My paintings are a reflection of the culture
in which I was raised! The painted imagery is layered, as is memory, and randomly
saturated, as is the unconscious. The juxtaposition of images, text, and
abstraction is interwoven to create new unique relationships with various
possibilities for meaning. It is the precise combination and arrangement
of individual parts that come together to create a greater meaning as a
whole. I allow tension to remain to create piqued interest in the viewer
mingled with a sense of unease.
With this work, I invite viewers to think
and to take nothing at face value.
