Many people go into art as a vocation because they have always possessed a skill for rendering. I may have partially started out this way, however I am compelled to create out of obsession, rather than to use art as a metaphor for language (I would rather write than render anyday). I am fascinated by color, pattern and texture, and find much more ìartî of the incidental variety in manufactured products, textiles, and nature. Art of the traditional, academic style bores me. I want to see artworks that are their own objects, whatever that object may be and how little sense it may make. I take no pleasure in looking at a rendering of that object instead, since it is a step removed from the actual item of interest. I work with visual feedback mediums, such as iridescence and metals which give back light as reflection and refractive prisms. My main media is metal leaf, but I also involve nacreous paint and other reflective materials. I use these materials because they are the ultimate forms of expressing the beauty and mystery of color, the most elemental concept of abstract painting. Although most of my works are two-dimensional, because of their active textural surfaces and three-dimensional (iridescent) color, they take on another dimension in space. In the past year I have been working on a series of tiled works using polymer clay, metal leaf, and various reflective mediums. Some pieces have a mathematical relationship, others are random, still others have personal symbolism for myself. If one is looking for subject matter in my non-objective works, the beauty of the elements in the earth and the cosmos would be the closest recognition of my inspiration.

I believe that a lot of people from my generation are disillusioned by the art world, myself one of them. My daring use of questionable materials such as glitter and other decorative mediums defy the traditional concept of fine art and fine art mediums. I want to create objects of fascination, beauty and mystery, so that someone unaccustomed to our cultural dos and don'ts of art would still be captivated by my pieces. Many of my art professors have had trouble with my mediums because they are too pretty (not masculine enough?). I find their prejudices rooted in the outdated old patriarchal starving artist in a garret cliché, and not based on any intrinsic value of the materials, or of any relevance to me.

 

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