Artist Statement

I am curious about meaninglessness. Definitions of words and symbols are often shifting. The things we build are always falling apart. The weather changes at the flap of a butterfly’s wings.

As a child, my mother read to me popular fables and myths from various cultures. Many of them were told to her a generation ago. The anecdotes of these tales and their morals have threaded their way into my own superstitions. I became fascinated by the obscure settings and timelines in which these stories took place.

I often use colored pencils, pastels, crayons, and water based paints because of their ability to revive childhood conventions of play, where tall tales blur with reality. The succulent and sophisticated properties of oil paint also allow for fictitious storytelling, mystery, and secrecy.

The figures present in my paintings are a repercussion of the vortex that has begun to swallow the landscape. The figures are four-legged animals, sometimes representing refugees, strangers, or myself as a wanderer. With only parts of their bodies remaining, the animals have narrowly escaped some kind of disaster.