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One sees new things rapidly
everywhere when everything seems new and different. It has to
become a part of one's world, a part of what one has to speak
with-one paints it slowly. To formulate the new experience into
something one has to say takes time
-Georgia O'Keeffe
I began drawing as a form of meditation and observation.
I make art from the things that I enjoy looking at and not what
others want to see, even though it pleases me when others can
relate to my work. What I have seen, felt, and imagined, I translate
into art; it has become my therapy.
My mother was my biggest influence in my art making. She used
to sit down with me when I was a kid and we'd draw people and
landscapes. They were very elementary but it gave me a chance
to calm down and focus my attention on something. I was a very
active child and I had a short attention span. Drawing became
my main translator of personal expression.
Drawings are not the only medium I have used to render my ideas.
Whether it is a drawing, painting, or photograph, all of my work
deals with spatial issues. I use layers, lines, shapes, surfaces,
and values to create ambiguous space. Ambiguous space is not
clearly flat or three-dimensional; it combines both possibilities.
The unmodeled shapes are the two-dimensional, flat areas within
my work. I want the viewer to move through the piece by following
the lines, which vary as light, dark, thin, thick, straight,
and curvy. Though not totally volumetric, the lines begin to
reveal a three-dimensional space. I choose to draw with charcoal
to achieve a gradation of line and value. The layered composition
edits various parts of the objects to help lead the viewer's
eye into an illusionistic space.
My drawings are meant to manipulate the viewer's conviction
of what it is they are seeing. Because of the ambiguous space,
the image becomes ambiguous as well. One cannot fully figure
out what the drawings contain. Yet when one looks closer, one
begins to see all the details. It is only then that the objects
reveal themselves. When I draw objects I use mirrors to help
me construct this sort of ambiguous space. Whether I draw from
a skeleton, driftwood, shoes, sculptures, or feathers, they are
drawn in such a way as to emphasize the line, mark, and structure
the object makes. The ambiguity of space and object is what makes
my works mysterious. The mirror helps me to see this.
By placing the mirrors under and around the object, I can see
several reflected views, giving me the ability to draw many images
within one picture plane. The mirror adds more lines, which become
environments, expanding the work's sense of space. The environment
places you within the piece as if you could travel through and
around the areas. The lines leave the image ambiguous and mysterious,
which complements the mysteriousness of the work's meaning. The
mirror brings me closer to the nature of the objects.
CompleteArtist Statement and Annotated
Bibliography
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