MOSAIC--Opening August 21, Darnell Fine Art-Santa Fe, NM

Artist’s Statement

This work deals with bringing together individual parts that when viewed in isolation have a less recognizable value but when combined in the montage of a multi-layered painting, the separate parts unite to make a whole. The idea of creating wholeness from of a collection of scattered, broken or cast-off pieces interests me on a metaphoric level and fuels my creative aesthetic.
I have been including elements of cursive handwriting superimposed across the surface of the paintings. When writing or marks are laid over previous layers, the result is that both passages appear simultaneously, although one may partially obscure the other, creating effects which I may not have predicted.
Cell phones, text messaging and computers have left little place for the script of the hand, thus inviting an investigation into writing’s long history and perhaps limited future. The looping form of a cursive “g” becomes as suggestive as a piece of bent wire imprinted into the wax surface. The weathered parchment colors and Asian calligraphic form ask the viewer to reference their own relationship to paper and pencil or words.
Using chains and wire to draw and make marks linked with the random movements of a bamboo brush are ways to explore the results of uncontrolled elements. This creates a unique visual statement when combined in a particular order. Often, we do not know how behavior or activity affect the people and places around us. I can experiment and ask myself over and over, “What happens when I do this?” The accumulation of artistic decisions and mistakes gives me a point of reference on the passage of time and the nature of my mind.
Mosaic describes the constant evolution that I desire in my work and is based on the change and buildup of all the influences that have come before.