The work reflects our contemporary tribalism, displayed on the streets via markings on the body, "plumage" and other accoutrements we use as a way of identifying fellow tribe members. The patterns and icons coöpted from different cultures reflect a desire to mix ethnologies, symbols, into a new mythology.
I am also interested in the depiction of women, in their many roles in life and religion, through the ages. I want to combine many images and influences, yet want them to float free across the page, their original power and identity undiluted. I work with these images in an abstract manner, much as the ribbon of color laid down beside them.
The combination of digitized imagery, block printing, embroidery, beadwork, painting and drawing are a collage of approaches which then create a collage of imagery. I want to incorporate traditional woman-identified skills such as embroidery to broaden my artistic approach as well as identify the artwork as a task which requires meticulous craft to create it.
In an age when painting can easily be supplanted by the ever evolving and fascinating technological landscape, it is only through this personal need and desire to make the work, the fascination in the task itself, the ideas and emotions that it can convey, that continues to make visual art compelling.
Current Exhibition:
6th Annual National Juried Show
February 1 - March 2, 2003
At GALLERY WEST
205 South Union Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
703-549-7359 Gallery West
