Methodical, repetitive painting soothes me. Having an excessive commitment to routine, what propels me are the shifts I see occurring as I lay down a color next to another and the forms that emerge. I have always been drawn to sports or activities that require a certain powerful stroke from my arm, and this repetitive physical process heightens the sensation of pushback from my media. I am not concerned with staying within the lines. Where flaw meets perfection is interesting to me, because we deal with that dynamic within ourselves daily. So I allow soft boundaries and welcome irregularities.
For many years, this approach resulted in series in which stripes were simultaneously the primary mark and expressive element. As I began to seek more formal complexity, the relationships within the painting began to take on personal meaning. My abstract work always prompted external references and interpretation, but the paintings gave me permission to see the operations of color, shapes, line, and space as connected to what was going on in my life. To my surprise, I went deep inside to feelings of aloneness, togetherness, loss, passion, relationship, connectivity. Curves in their sensuousness, gestural quality, and shape-shifting figuration became revelations.
Taking the stripe on a journey, I found new spatial possibilities in which the two-dimensional could suggest movement in an open field — ambiguous spaces occupied by quirky, minimalist shapes. Currently I am teasing out multi-planar dimensionality with more intricate configurations. I’ve walked through a door in my paintings and with my art. The act of painting continues to be the core of my work, but now I am taking my awareness to that place where ideas manifest and morph in the material world through paint.