ARTIST STATEMENT
Themes of permanence and impermanence run through my current body of work, as my family and I recover from the fire that destroyed our home in early 2023. Representational painting’s interplay between reality and imagination has always fascinated me–the ability of realism to spark human imagination. Now that most of the physical touchstones that marked my life and the home that sheltered my family for a quarter century cease to exist, the act of remembering has become singularly interconnected with my imagination. To explore these paradoxes I created a series of still lifes and landscapes with moored boats. My recent still lifes depict old emotion-provoking objects found in my mother’s home on Nantucket paired with fragile signs of life, such as nests and flowers. I continued these ambiguous narratives by introducing the iconic image of a boat on the beach, a shape like the offering of cupped hands, whether the boat is moored, abandoned, or waiting to launch. Other landscapes encompass a haziness which may be clearing or obscuring.
I am also working on a series of portraits of my daughter living throughout the generations of her family. These images are my personal wanderings through time, wondering what the experiences of our female relatives were, and what they revealed and concealed throughout their lives.
In sum, my goal has always been to create moments of sanctuary in my paintings, ones that afford a place to stop and reflect, and perhaps feel both protected against and peacefully connected to humanity.