S T A T E M E N T

My paintings revel in contradictions; religious icons amidst flocked wallpaper, gender politics with confectionary color and consumer culture among art history. My paintings and their subjects are culled from everyday life. Contemporary artifacts are re-presented in compositions that are reminiscent of historical themes. Influenced by my early catholic school education, religious motifs keep sneaking into my paintings. This combined with my interest in consumerism; pattern and our cultures fascination with romanticism infuse my paintings with a sense of the absurd while conveying a contemporary perspective and critique on the themes and ideas of our time.

My paintings are based on figurines that I find in dollar stores, ebay and on my travels. As a figurative painter who is committed to gender politics the figurine as body double allows me to critique contemporary society and its attitudes, as
evidenced by mass produced objects while enabling a post-feminist critique of the body, consumerism, and class issues. The figurines are inexpensive objects created for a large audience, sold in urban neighborhoods and virtual stores across the world. Their appeal is universal and depictions ubiquitous. In my paintings they appear as the great subjects of art; the crucified Christ, Madonna and child, the odalisque, ballerina, domesticated animals or the Genre subjects of the everyday man and woman, usually in stark contrast to their environs.

My paintings are watercolor and acrylic on paper. The combination of these two materials creates a visual juxtaposition of opaque and transparent, hard and soft, synthetic and naturalistic. This flux between figure and ground, static and fluid, minimal and decorative, naturalistic and synthetic is an inherent element in my paintings. The ability of painting to present two views simultaneously while seducing with visual bling so to speak is what makes painting a viable and exciting format for my contemporary concerns.

home