Figures inhabit my paintings. They move fluidly, navigating and insinuating themselves. As I work, they are making their presence felt. I must tell their story. I realize the figures I paint are engaging with something unseen. I see them and the forms they are interacting with, as interpenetrating perceiving fields in order to make what seems invisible, visible. For me, their interaction with perceiving fields gives me a sense of possibility, like exploring and uncovering lost terrains, lost cities, shattering delusions and illusions, long excursions, restoring troves of what we’ve lost. I’m on a visual archeological dig. Where will my mind take me?

 

I like to nurture this space. For me, it’s a kind of off-world experience inhabited by myths, fairy tales, fables, legends, illuminated manuscripts, where magic asserts itself. I’m interested in the unexpected, the unexplained, nuances between rational and irrational, unanticipated patterns of magic and mystery. 

 

As I enter this world, I may begin with a drawing or move directly into a painting. I want to find out how the figures and forms will interact. They are talking to me. The figures, structures and forms locate and rearrange themselves yet maintain their tension to exist.

 

I want to surprise myself, stretch beyond the borders of my expectations, travel the work. I want to establish an intimate relationship with each work.  

 

I’m haunted by a question, can human consciousness shift from what appears to be the limitations of how we see ourselves, who we imagine we are? This question has resonated as an unconscious thread in my mind, lingering, it affects my art. Is it possible that we are more fluid and free than we think, in spite of ourselves? In our shamanic past, we ‘traveled’ and visited other dimensions easily. The figures in my work meet their world by existing beyond known relationships. I encourage their fluidity, their fearlessness. I can live vicariously through them.