Artist Statement

My art can be characterized in two related ways: as conceptual work anchored in the pictorial—in which case each piece is very explicitly conceived as the visual element in a thesis—and as abstract painting that departs from a concept.

In Whitewash (2007-8), Remainders (2013),  and Habit (2015), I draw on my scholarly writings on race, gender, and the convent. The works in these three series are explicit attempts at expanding the insights I came to when I was writing. Exploring their metaphoric potential through visual art invites a broader understanding of each—both for me and for the audience. 

In Elemental (2004-06; 2010-12), the concept that informs each painting is the evocation of the aesthetic in dereliction, both in natural landscapes (manifested as sediment and erosion) and in industrial and urban decay. These paintings are fundamentally an exploration of the use of abstract painting to reference the process of decay and its beauty.

While I use multiple colors in most paintings, I tend to favor the predominance of different values of one particular color in each painting. Besides readily evoking one natural element (and thus being, in part, a connection to the thematic focus of a series such as Elemental), working with one preponderant color in each piece is an aesthetic preference that I also have explored in other projects such as Whitewash (2007-8) and Remainders (2013).  It is, moreover, a formal strategy to unify each composition, and even an entire body of work.