Modern Paintings Depicting Moods in Pure Abstraction to Contemporary Goddess Iconography
Significantly influenced by the SF Bay Area landscape, both literally and culturally, as a mixed media, abstract artist, I also tend to explore unique transpersonal terrains where unseen influence and inspiration take shape. Born outside of Detroit, I eventually ventured to the University of Michigan School of Art for studio painting, to research symbolism in contemporary art, and clinical psychology. In 2000 after completing my doctoral dissertation, Artists as Midwives in the Cultural Rebirth of Contemporary Goddess Iconography: An Eco-Feminist and Heuristic Inquiry, at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA and specializing in perinatal mental health, I became the founding Director of a nonprofit, the LGBTQ Perinatal Wellness Center. During the pandemic shut-down, I turned to my easel full-time. By fall of ‘22, having become an award winning, published, internationally exhibiting artist with commissions in the works, I knew I was moving in the next right direction.
I have always delighted in delving into my painting practice wherein time paradoxically simultaneously stands still and simply soars. In a creative, semi-trance of heightened anticipation, I mix and move pigment across cradled birch panels and with a combined sense of wonder and euphoria, depict vibrant arrays of rhythm, form, and symbolism in a resplendent cacophony of color; Painting becomes my paradise.
Cycles of the seasons, moods of the moon, morphogenetic fields, dreamscapes, perinatal processes, and subtle nuances in nature all inspire my creative musings. The mixed media abstract painting process I employ includes several iterations- initially as a kind of dowsing experiment; The brush or oil stick, a rod I move across the substrate guided by a seeming liminal, alchemical current; Next I employ sgriffito, scratching into the layered surface as if on an archeological dig with utmost care and concentration uncovering the nascent configurations. As seemingly unformed forces make themselves more and more visible on the panel, with excited anticipation, I add more clarifying marks delineating structures integral to the composition. With each declarative layer, I better perceive the painting’s inherent essence, hinting at it’s unique meanings and messages.
The universal truth of intuition infuses, inspires, and guides each piece. My art making process is a contemplation on the ever-interconnected, non-dual nature of psyche and its inherent evolutionary capacities. The profoundly poignant images of Mendieta, Chicago, Af Klint, and Saar’s purpose-laden works continually fill my eyes with visual hope. I hold the intention that viewers who engage my paintings may likewise find some moments of reflective reprieve, perhaps even recurrent renewal.
My art has been exhibited through SF City Art Gallery, San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, 111 Minna Gallery and Voss Gallery, SF, Studio 23 and Red Door Gallery, Alameda, Marin Society of Artists, CAMi Art+Wine Gallery, Calistoga, Charles Krug Winery, St. Helena, West Elm Showroom San Mateo and Emeryville, Rock Paper Scissors Collective Gallery, Oakland, online at Woman Made Art, Chicago, Gallerium, Toronto, ARTSY, and more.
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