Artist Statement

Art in every form is good for us. It is good for our souls and minds to see, make, contemplate and share. Art heals us and brings us to the truth of who we are as humans. We artists are the masters of deeply focusing on our personal obsessions. My obsession has to do with the blending of colour with story and mystery.

When it comes to colour, I have synesthesia. This means, when I look at a colour I can smell it, taste it and feel it. Because colour has an inordinate impact on me, I want it to have an impact on you, too. I like to push the colour to the edge by working in high key saturated colours allowing the work to become unreal. I like to contort the figure and make it tell the story about reaching for balance and intensity.

Stories are as important to life as is food: how long can you go without hearing or telling a story? Stories are the way we open up our perceptions, the way we find ourselves. Our environments and our relationships push us, often to the edge. This edge requires us to be in the seemingly contradictory states of strength and vulnerability simultaneously. I want to see figures in test situations and see what balance they can reach when pushed.

The artist has the power to evoke mystery in unexpected moments, and we love to peek into mystery. When I was a little kid sitting in church, it was the stained-glass windows, the statues, and the intricate fabric of the priest’s robe that captured my attention. Over time I realized I was seeing the power of the artist to bring mystery through and wake us up to worlds unknown.

The core questions that arise in the story of our existence are unanswerable and yet always beckon: why am I here, why do I have this body, what am I connected to, what do I influence, what is my power? What happens when I push beyond what I know and get taken to the edge? How do I achieve those sublime moments of balance where mystery sings through me and my being opens to something larger?

My paintings are ways for me to wonder and obsess about all these things: mystery, colour and humans at the edge searching for balance.

Artists Biography

Bodies of Work
At The Center, the Whole: Paintings About Finding The Center At The Edge, 2008

Falling: Paintings About The Fall Into Love, 2005-2007

The Acrobats: The Performance of Life, Paintings 2006-08 - on going

The Sidhe: Paintings, 2005-08 - on going

The Ladies: Paintings, 2004-08 - on going

At the Bath: Paintings Considering The Nude, Fineline Gallery, Portland Oregon, 1999

The Story and Myth: Paintings Exploring the Story of Adam, Eve and Lilith, Fineline Gallery, Portland
Oregon, 1998

Recent Work: PBNJ Studio- Portland, Oregon, 1996

Education
Pacific Northwest College of Art. Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting, 1996

Burren College of Art, Ireland, Painting, 1995

Portland Community College, Art, 1991

Awards

Gamblin Artist Colors Painting Award - 1996

Charles Cary Award for Life Drawing: 1st Place - 1996

Charles Cary Award for Life Drawing: 3rd Place - 1995

Pacific Northwest College of Art Faculty Portfolio Review Scholarship for Outstanding Artistic and
Academic Achievement - 1994

Intel Scholarship for Outstanding Artistic and Academic Achievement - 1993

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