mystical landscapes
To me, painting is a spiritual event. The space between painter and canvas is natural, supernatural, and spiritual. I delight in the evolution of process, and my current body of work addresses ones inner self, connecting with outside world. While painting this body of work, I took long walks outside allowing my inner self to translate my sensory reaction to the scenery into abstract paint.
The outside world is vast, and while I am a part of the landscape I feel small. It was a natural progression for me to gravitate to a larger size canvas when translating the communion with nature into the lyrical rhythms of paint. Within the heroic space of the canvas, I address the ephemeral characteristics of life, the energetic space between nature and myself, while inviting the viewer into an intimate world of numerous layers. While painting I take into consideration the location of my research. The artwork in return, references the outdoors in an abstract and mysterious way, and the paintings themselves become mystical worlds of their own.
Within my work, white paint can be viewed as light, as texture, or as a veil like form. The use of the veil within my work refers to an element of mystery. I find the veil to be a piece of sheer gossamer covering and also revealing parts of the paintings history. White paint shows the tenderness of nature and at the same time acts like a thick gauze band-aid healing the wounds of life.
While working on this body of work I became interested in investigating what lay beneath the circles and ellipses of dark color. I began to scrape away layers of paint with a small drywall nail, finding a wonderful array of bright colors. In some of the paintings I would continue to scrape the small holes throughout the entire piece, allowing the viewer to see the multiple stages of the painting, as if my painting revealed its own (or my) history.
My paintings explore life’s mystery. There is a veil between what we think we know and what might really be there. My work describes a force much larger than me. It is this natural, powerful force that at times I can almost explain, but for the most part remains obscure.