Mourning Flowers

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        My work starts with memory. The broad concept, the intimate details, something stuck in the back of my mind, or whatever other aspect of the past haunts me at any given time. Placing figures in cerebral, dream like spaces, filled with organic forms and soft edges, allow me to explore challenging and often intangible experiences. My work explores our relationship with our bodies, the spaces around us, the people closest to us, and our past. In the work cold blues are contrasted by harsh, angry reds and warmed by hopeful pinks. The spaces are cold but never devoid of any warmth. The paintings are lonely, my figures finding safety in the solitude. Themes of grief and intimacy pervade the work. The act of making becomes an exercise in vulnerability and connection. I examine women’s unseen emotional labor. How it impacts my life and that of the women around me and what it means to play the caregiver. How once that role is taken it can be near impossible to extricate oneself from. I grapple with questions around how we adapt to survive and struggle to gain independence from our past. Mourning is also present. For innocence, for relationships, and for those lost in the whirlwind of growing up.