Artist Statement
In these selected works, the viewer is called to think about their own place as both animal and human in a world that is solidly concrete while also full of imaginative wonder. In Called to Action, a Joan of Arc-like figure stands with purpose amid flowers exploring how human nature is called to act on its environment while still being a product of it. In Memento Mori, the subject is again apart from yet a part of nature; in the subject’s face, we read an emotional response to what might be the experience of the vase of flowers next to her: a brief life filled with unparalleled beauty that inevitably ends, where beauty and death are two sides of the same coin. In the following painting, Calling Card, the subject contemplates an outside manifestation of her inner struggles. She considers a crow, a clever, communal creature with a long memory. The viewer is called to wonder what of the creature, representative of the duality present in the permanence of death and the ecstasy of flight, is the subject recognizing in herself? In Knots sees the same subject in a more recognizably modern setting, holding a knotted rope while gazing out at the constructed environment. Again, she is contemplating her place, this time in the human world, while her hands explore how she is tied to the complexities of the circle of life. In The Last Unicorn, the subject is finally at peace, having found that mythos and the boundless power of human creativity can help her navigate the dualities of life/death, human society/wildness and duty/imaginative play. Through invention, the artist/subject is (I am) able to reconcile opposites, helping her (me) to move through life in a balanced way. The artist/subject (I) function(s) as both director and actor in the vast universe and I create my own meaning.
The sculptural works continue this reconciliation into the world outside of the artist, populated by objects that, like the artist, act while being acted upon. If I had wings might be an image from the mind of the subject in In Knots. The juxtaposition of bronze and brick envisions the possibility of transcendence, evoking our universal longing to soar beyond limitations while being solidly rooted to the city scape, literally made of brick. In Feet on the Ground, Head in the Sky, we see again elements both grounded and airborne, though they are not unified here. In pairing the two pieces of work together, the artist is using her imagination to reconcile the urge towards survival and that towards liberty; towards earthly and towards celestial. The separation is again apparent in Encounter, where the domestic dog meets his wild, wolf ancestor. The space between their gazes is the creative space where the artist and the viewer can hold both security and freedom in their mind, and imagine how they might coexist, whether peacefully or not. In To Know You and in Reciprocity, we see how the element of humanity that is animal, and the aspects of cooperation, connection, communication that we see as human-like in animals, serve this same purpose: to reconcile control with utter abandonment in such a way that the synergy of both forces might create an experience that holds both in true honor. Through the mediation of individual creativity, we see how what we have been taught to experience as opposites might instead be experienced as a cohesive whole, the beautiful contradictions that are life on earth.