I work in series that often span over decades. Currently I am combining the human figure with elements that occur in nature. The goal is to be real but surreal, perhaps it could be called magical realism with touches of expressionistic brushwork.
My great love is oil painting, as it renders almost infinite possibilities regarding technique of impasto, glazes, layering, scraping, and can be very sensual. But I am also proficient in drawing, photography and video.
About older series:
The series Romancing the Thoroughbred (of which the video Obsession is part of) is an in-depth study of equines dwells on the very on ontology of the horse, examines the horse as a mythical animal, erotically sublime, symbol of power or status, the horse as an empowering form of therapy and a projection of our dreams.
Romancing the Thoroughbred was initially inspired by Eadweard Muybridge's studies of animal and human movement, and while movement is still a key concept, the the relationship of women and horses is also important.
A few years ago I had a nearly fatal riding accident. I had to learn to walk again. The aftermath of the experience fuels the omnipresent existentialism in my work. I am concerned with death, memory and memorabilia, fragility of the landscape and the environment we live in, the animals around us, vulnerability of the human body, and how man-made objects with human references, will be broken and forgotten, reminding us of the transiency of life.
Depending which series I am currently working on, some of my references can also be traced to our intellectual heritage from the Italian Baroque to a handful of 20th century artists, work that ranges from the sublime to the truly bizarre.
Juxtapositions such as day and night, good and evil, procreation and death, ugly and beautiful, plastic or flesh, are often part of the investigation. Art makes the mundane extraordinary. I believe in the transformative power of art.
A painter must be given a completely free rein to any feelings that he or she may have and reject nothing to which she is naturally drawn. This ruthlessness acts for me as the discipline through which I discard what is inessential for me. Unless this process is constantly alive, I will see life simply as material for my line of art. I look at something, and ask myself, can I make a picture by me out of this?
A painting is not a picture of an experience, it is an experience. If I could say what I see in words, I would not have to paint. I believe in the transformative power of art. There is often disappointment, and sometimes happy accidents, as the process itself guides the eye, brain and hand, but if a perfect picture were achieved, as I first see it in my mind’s eye, I would have to stop painting. It is the imperfection that is the driving force in a seemingly endless quest.
Accept change. It is necessary for growth. Together we can transform pain into miracles and love, but we must consciously and purposefully create those connections.
I did not know that a new life was not given to me in vain, that there is a high price, that it requires great effort and great difficulties. But it is the beginning of a new story - a story about the gradual reformation of a person, transferring from one world into another, committing to a new, unknown life. That may be the subject of the new life, but this [what you see] is my present narrative.