For more than a decade, my artistic practice has addressed the issue of how to portray interior and exterior human connections through painting and drawing, and now, sculpture. In contemporary society, we often are disconnected from our intellect and our bodies, from each other and our environment, so much so that we are unaware of the power and importance of these connections to our very survival. Consequently, the emotional and psychological challenge in my work is to visually describe these connections through the compositional elements of form, color surface and gesture.

Just as these concepts are abstract, my work, whether 2-dimensional or 3, is also non-objective, usually consisting of abstract forms on textured grounds. I choose frequently a square format support and work with oil paint, graphite, conte crayon, encaustic and charcoal, etc., first, slowly building a layered surface and then, often, sanding or scraping it down and reconstructing it. The resulting surface is tactile, one of traces, makings and forms that emerge from or sink into the picture plane, just as the awareness of our senses enters and leaves our consciousness. The surface markings, erasures and abstract shapes and forms are ambiguous in meaning, allowing the viewer to construct personal associations and narratives.

In 2000, I began to explore systematically the visual, psychological and compositional embodiment of the sphere not only as a form but also as a vehicle for meaning. I hoped to discover, by depicting the form in different compositional configurations, if it could project both a sensuality and an intelligence that would be grasped by the viewer. Could this simple, reductive form be imbued with the idea or the sense of human connections? Variously, the spheres are stacked like a mound of buoys or a pyramid of sport balls, rendered both representationally and more abstractly. In certain works, the spheres recede into space like clouds, appear suspended like grapes on a vine or collapse to the center of the page. My intent is that compositionally the spheres are more observed into the atmosphere of the work than appearing to sit on top of the picture plane.

Color is also critical to the resonance of my work. Sometimes the spheres are a moody black, grey and midnight blue, ensconced in dark, empty grounds. In other works, they are saturated with vivid colors that are sometimes symbolic of the inner and outer worlds I seek to portray. Often a red tendril-like form and a shifting, diagonal line define the works. The former is symbolic of a woman’s blood and, thus, it is a record of my presence in the work, of my challenge to convey human connections, and my ongoing critical search for self-awareness. The latter is a formal compositional device that grounds the image within picture plane like a horizon line, infusing my work with a conceptual time and a place.

Art historically, my work, particularly the sphere compositions, is heir to the still life genre tradition as practiced by Cezanne or Morandi who investigated perspective and the challenge of depicting an isolated object in space. My work also is linked, stylistically and psychologically, to German Expressionism and Romanticism. Ultimately, I want the work to be informed by ideas of human interaction and connection, to suggest a map of what we have felt before and which now may be hidden or lost. Simply, I hope my work makes the intangible more tangible.