Statements
Artist Statement
My work is based most recently in the Everglades but also in the garden I helped create as a wildlife habitat. I am interested in the similarities between weeds and human populations; their joint migrations, refugees who, like weeds, are welcome in some spots but chased out of others.
During the Covid pandemic, I took long walks through the Everglades, foraging for images. Focusing on outer reflections, led to inner reflection and deepened my connection to environment. I became immersed in the reflections on water and the organic structures within nature
Photography allows me to re-examine these images later in the studio, and I find unexpected layers within the reflections on the garden ponds and wild water surfaces. Below the clouds’ random patterns, I see unexplained but magnetizing life and decay revealed in organic harmony-raw red rotting leaves, microscopic specks of mysterious life, slime-coated aquatic plant life.
Using precious metal leaf to gild these images allows me to utilize a more conventionally valued material such as silver or gold to elevate the status of each image and change a simple photograph into a unique object with a solid presence. I push the method of oxidization to its limits to produce unique surfaces, both beautiful and destroyed to reflect the alchemy of nature.
Scenes from the Kitchen
I’ve always felt a strong connection to kitchen scenes, especially still life paintings of humble domestic objects by artists such as Juan Sanchez Cotan and Georgio Morandi. I could relate to a painting of a cabbage hanging from a string more than any grand scale and dramatic action-packed work.
When I started my degree in sculpture, I made ceramics reliefs and painted watercolors of the objects in the kitchen. I carved still lifes: pears and bottles from stone and orange peels from wood. When my children were little, I started taking pictures in my kitchen at the time of day when the late afternoon sun would suddenly illuminate the countertop like a stage set. Eager to capture the fleeting effect, I moved the fruit bowl into the light.
My current series features a few treasured fruit bowls, finds from flea markets and a mundane blue plastic strainer I initially resented my husband for buying it but became so useful it kept getting in on the act. I am interested in the quality of ordinary, humble objects and foods; I use gold leaf to elevate the mundane and accentuate their rich colors. The compositions are purposefully spontaneous to take advantage of the momentary light. They capture stillness out of a chaotic scene.