My work is about contemporary dread, and my simultaneous longing for ‘...the golden city on the hill...’- a place where humankind's’ achievements are at its’ finest. Superpowers and scavengers, mother and child inhabit landscapes of collapsed institutions and psychic immolation. My challenge as a visual artist, is how to represent through painting, the act of moving beyond the ‘in general’ feeling of dis-ease that can keep one captive to cultures of nihilism.
The painting “RIVERBANK” has a beautiful temptress offering glowing marbles-- that have been scooped from the trash, to a shivering child as another looks on.This image is making up its’ own creation myth, while at the same time incubating some kind of destructive force. “...And tonight rivers will run dry and not for the first time rivers will run/ Hundreds of years in the future there could be computers looking for life on earth/ Don’t fight for the wrong side, say what you feel like say how you feel/ You’ll go backwards but then go forwards again...” { lyrics in the song,”Twisted Logic”, by the group Coldplay}.
“ROOFTOP” is taken from a Rubens’ painting of a hunting scene. I was struck by how much empathy Rubens had for the persecuted beasts at a time when sympathizing with an un- dominated animal did’nt seem to be part of that era’s social system. The child, who is taking the place of the fox from the original work, is playing dead.
In the painting “GOLDEN CITY,” a pregnant woman prowls the outskirts of New York City, observing the majestic skyline glowing on the horizon. Pregnant women, with their absolute ties to the forces of nature, can be metaphorical outsiders. Here, this woman evokes ‘Lupa’--the she wolf that suckled the boys who founded Rome. The shining city represents the disturbing premise of manifest destiny.
