Artist Statement
………..once upon a time there was a world: whimsical, humorous, credulous, synthetic, intimate, alien, glittering, soft, innocent and childlike, humming and obscure……….
Materials, found, everyday objects and colorful, decorative supplies overflow the categorized shelves and bins in my studio. In fabricating these fairy-like worlds, I knit, cut, glue, sew, find, draw, construct, select, saw, paint, decorate, carve, combine and mold. Initially I begin the process of the work with a material, a feeling, a color, or a vague image. Obscure, intangible thoughts and sensations collect within my mind and my body and step-by-step the work evolves, develops while making. In my work I am going on a journey, seeking to surprise myself.
There are no words for what I am going to do. Things come together – one stone goes on top of the next – it feels like building.
My work incorporates fictional narratives, dream worlds with anchors in the real, occupy a space between familiarity and fantasy. These environments are systems – overlapping worlds, groups and subgroups that are juxtaposed and united through scale, color palette, form, space, and material. With the continuous pushing and pulling among the elements of this vocabulary, I am creating hierarchies of events and narratives, which compete and communicate. These multiform assemblages result in playful, mysterious landscapes enticing the viewer into visual narrative journeys often with a strong sense of foreboding. I develop pathways for the viewer to travel. I link micro with macro worlds, encourage a sense of irritation, and implied movement of objects, and ask the viewer to relate themselves to the forms and the situations that they present.
I am interested in creating environs in which the viewer experiences personal associations; allowing them to feel, to dream, to fantasize, to be irrational, subjective and intuitive. Specific or vague personal memories are awakened.
The viewer is asked to weave his or her own story and sensations, to believe and to wonder.
