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The worn surfaces of old houses and buildings are the primary source of inspiration within my work. The quiet sense of endurance, tired beauty, and faded adornment bespeak another time. The home, a place that means different things to many people is the focus of my work. To me, as a mother, the walls of a home provide both protective shelter and also serve as a restrictive confine. We live in a duplicitous age where we strive for gender equality but we don't want to sacrifice the matriarchal domain.
My paintings are the result of an iterative process. I recurrently build and remove layers of color and texture. I use colors often associated with femininity; pinks, corals, soft, fleshy nudes and juxtapose them against a darker more stoic palette. I work sections of the canvas into smooth glossy patches and rework other areas, intentionally allowing an uneven, sometimes scabrous, skin to develop. These formal contradictions of dueling textures and contrasting palettes repeatedly layered into the pieces are rendered in deference to this modern maternal paradox. The patinas in my work, like those that remain on the houses, have evolved into an abstract domestic iconography.
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