135th Anniversary Annual Members Exhibition

The thermal mists of Yellowstone National Park offer a stunning display of colorful hues. As the superheated water rises creating billowing clouds of saturated color that dance and wist in the light above the landscape, a mesmerizing scene unlike anywhere on earth and one that inspired in me a desire to capture some fragment of it.  

Geometric forms that represent balance and structure, tempered by modulating rays of light, combine to form a kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities. Inspired by the holistic concepts of space and time in the spiritual worlds of Indigenous and Eastern cultures, where empty space is significant and represents the potential for new ideas and possibilities, this work uses “empty” space and a cyclic array of forms and colors to create an nth dimensional world with spatial and temporal transformations that manifest various perceptual dichotomies.  

This piece Attraction is about spaces defined by the ropes all over. Attraction for one element a window to another window. The polish bronze is reflecting that choice. The black shape is reflected on the polish bronze.  

I like the ethereal quality of finding images and shapes within and behind other shapes. I find ways to find "safe passage" through the canvas, much as we all manuever through life and find our way. Life is like a puzzle and we all have to find a way to make all the pieces fit. Intuitively I convey feelings in a particular painting depending on my situation at the time..exploring the way shapes intersect in life and the way we someimes hide the obvious behind a mask. However I want the viewer to reach their own conclusions about what the symbolism may represent and decide what I may have been thinking.  

On any rainy and dreary day, one does not expect to see such joyful splashes of colors. I was drawn to the people going about their business, unaware of the colorful display they were making at this one moment in time.  

Fear of the dark and nighttime in the city often feels menacing for me. I wanted to paint a piece that reflects a city that is welcoming and friendly at night, a place we would want to be.  

As an artist and a parent of four young children, trying to navigate life and love within the contexts of the larger world can be complicated. This work emotes imagery of place and time with playful and controlled shapes and color, often feeling like organizing chaos. The work reveals personalities and emotions that have conversations about shape, space and color. The act of painting itself is a metaphor for what we reveal and conceal about ourselves, moving through space and time, collecting emotions and deciding what we put on the surface and what we hide. What we know, and what we need to learn.