Painting has always seemed an adventure to me. The face of the painting is always in motion. My way of working is like a puzzle, a joyous puzzle where things are moved around until the boundaries of expression are enlarged. Usually months go by before color and form come together and tell a story...It always seems that at the last minute a light goes on in my brain; then a few strokes with the brush are all it takes to finish what took months of work. Then I can walk away from it.
My work in this exhibit is part of my current "Reliquaries" series. It is an expression of my search for identity and a spiritual place. For me as an artist, memories, like relics, provide a spiritual link between life and death. My work, based on memories, real or imapgined, explores absence, longing, identity, and survival. I have been incorporating images of my family mixed with strangers whose images have been discarded at tag sales, people I don't know and am not related to. They all gain a new identity through my work.
