Artist Statement
My work considers emotional, spiritual and psychic experience. It’s approached with an economy of gesture and a slow, quiet sensitivity. I work intuitively, accessing liminal states of consciousness and feeling. The imagery is drawn from my lived experience, though no explicit narrative is presented.
I’m interested in invisible phenomena. Over the last 2.5 years I’ve been working with an Algonquin Shaman for my own personal healing. Through our trance work and astral travel, I’ve developed a database of fantastic, bizarre, otherworldly visuals and sensations that have become very influential in my work. My work dwells in the realm of the invisible, outside of language and rational thought. Translucency, faintness of line, and luminescent palettes reflect the altered, slippery states of consciousness where the imagery originates.
My work is an earnest investigation into the potential power of an image. What does an image absorb and how can it be a conduit of energy? What is the healing potential of an image, and can this psychic transference be traced and/or placed? When do images transcend their physicality?
My materials and gestures are rooted in drawing: color pencil, china marker, and watercolor pencil. I use drawing as a feminist strategy in response to traditional, hierarchical ideas implicit in the male-centric history of Painting. Drawing alludes to exercise and rehearsal (feminine) while painting is commonly associated with grandeur and finitude (masculine), functioning as the superior end object to the precedent, less relevant drawing. By painting through drawing, I subvert this narrative and redistribute value.