Artist Statement

"This is how we used to understand painting until a few centuries ago: as one of the sciences pointing to the future, as a sister of medicine, astrology, and cosmetics." –Jan Verwoert

My practice is an arena for exploration and experimentation, processing and synthesizing information in unexpected ways. My approach allows me to yield new forms which aim to reconcile a scientific, logical worldview with the idiosyncratic nature of the complex lived experience. Painting opens up new spaces of thought and allows both the maker and viewer to move through time in non-linear ways. I am interested in the history of how our scientific understanding of the world and our place in it has influenced the depiction of space, form, and light, which I consider foundational painting problems. My curiosity and sense of wonder are enhanced by what science reveals about nature, the definitive and potential attributes of the universe. Exercises such as visualizing how life grows from DNA to developed biological masses is a common way I arrive at form. I see my work and research in conversation with a continuum of artists weaving together this terrain, such as Arthur Dove, Hilma af Klint, and Agnes Pelton. 

Art creates space for alternative ways of knowing and communicating my experience of being in the world, immersed in and made of interconnected phenomena. It is a space disinterested in proving facts or ideologies but I aim to open up new possibilities and forms of thought, vision, and understanding of experience.

My early work began with questions of the human form and I continue to harken back to this as a touchstone. As I began investigating the structure of the human body, I quickly found myself immersed in readings about sacred geometry, the golden mean, exercises in topology and related philosophical agendas that try to map nature to underlying universal mathematical principles and thought. Initial exposure to these ideas took root and has continued to grow and expand, branching out freely in multiple directions. I am a rhizome in this way. This research, which has ultimately been guided by intuition, continues to inform my work and thoughts. I am inspired by the work in science and mathematics, while recognizing its limits and also want to push back and challenge the Western emphasis on objectivity. These scientific structures, systems, and metaphysical ponderings serve as a sturdy but fluid trellis for the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of my experience. At some point the latter may fully take over.