Artist Statement

 

All my life, despite a deep passion and sense of fulfillment that came from creating art, there existed simultaneously an undercurrent inside me I would describe as ‘terror of the impermanence of the world’. This realization, that everything I knew through my senses would eventually break down or disappear, consumed me by the age of 35. It was at that point I ‘walked out of my life’ and lived as an Eastern monastic for the next 22 years.

 

My question during that time was, if I too was to eventually breakdown and disappear, could I experience this while still alive? Was there something permanent, that didn’t come and go, and if so, was I part of it? And would it be more real then this world?

 

My current life as an artist comes from this almost 60-year life journey - the first half a pile of futile pursuits and indulgences to become somebody, and the second half a deconstruction of the first half to become nobody.  

 

As an artist now I focus on portraits, seeking to uncover the layers of our human condition to expose something more fundamental and intimate.  I am currently working on a series called ‘Portraits from the Bardo’ - an exploration of transformation, dissolution, death and recreation in life and consciousness.

 

I portray everyday people, mostly woman, being layered and unlayered at the same time - visually and supernaturally dissolving to hint at the distortions of what is real and unreal in our world- inquiries into our deepest belief systems and conditioning.

 

All of my work is personal, I seek to expose through the expressions of my subjects what may be buried or secretly loved and feared in all of us - life, death, consciousness, longing, loss, and liberation.

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