I moved to Nashville Tennessee over twenty years ago in pursuit of a singing career, which I found and have been enjoying since then. But it was painting that presented itself as my primary mode of expression after I made it through a turbulent and traumatic period in my life. My finest therapy hours have been spent in my garden or hiking in the woods, so it is a logical evolution that my paintings bear witness to the harmony and realignment that comes out of my experiences there. Never having outgrown my love of color, texture and mythology, all three take a prominent place in my process.
I use gesso to produce rich texture and paint over it using layer upon layer of transparent acrylic color. When a varnish coat is finally applied, each color rises to the fore, and the result is a vibrancy that has a creamy, dreamlike appearance not experienced with opaque paint.
My adulthood has been occupied by experiences in which I could learn to see the unity in things that might otherwise appear to be opposing. In this tiny space where two opposites become one is where I get my sense of reverence and magic that my paintings spring from. My work tends to have both an earthiness and otherworldly quality that beckons the viewer to consider not only the playful simplicity of nature, but also to see beyond the merely “beautiful” to glimpse a true and unseen world that we all, on some level, cannot explain but recognize.
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