Artist Statement

What influences my work is primarily nature and my fascination with the beauty in motion from forms I find immersed drawing plein air. My muse is the random movements of the butterfly in garden spaces, it is my entrypoint and where I feel transformed by the beauty that surrounds me. I drift into becoming apart of the space using all of the senses and as I draw from observation, I feel deeply connected a part of another world. The butterfly is metaphor of transformation and crossing other worlds.

Other things that inform my artwork include time at libraries researching the biology of the butterfly, poetry, philosophy in particular John O’Donohue and Carl Jung. I am also fascinated by recent discoveries in neuroscience and the power of aesthetics in rewiring the brain, an area of study which is neuroaesthetics.

The Embrace series is an exploration that began in late 2023, reflecting on embracing life’s experiences and the importance of self acceptance. The work began to play in a different way, with wing forms in tighter and looser interplays within a central overall shape in the picture plane. The forms intertwining like in an embrace and yet loose enough to move to the next step like in a dance if you will. The titles of the works reference dance steps. Knowing yourself more deeply brings a more thoughtful choice in where or when the next step will be. I connect to dance as in my youth a classical ballet dancer at the National Ballet School of Canada.

The process I use to create starts with observational drawings. Then I combine the analogue into digital on my iPad transforming the works again. It is an intuitive process and like a conductor I bring many aspects of what inspires me together: nature, movement, poetry, music. The interlayering and opacity expresses a visual language of fleeting moments, things in motion with a mix of darkness and light, expressions of the variety of emotions one moves through. Psychologists posit that we can experience up to a range of 34,000 emotions, so imagine how much over a lifetime we go through as emotional beings. The overarching beauty lies within these often difficult spaces of learning and growth toward self acceptance and a deeper understand of self. There is beauty that comes out of this hard work, if we are willing to do it.

“Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.”

(Carl Jung).

I will be at the Hamptons Art Fair in July 2024.

Commissions are welcome. Above artworks Manège 4-8.