Artist Statement

We lost our childhood photo-albums shuttling between families and cities. In an effort to reclaim what is gone the unwanted memorabilia of others drives the work and tells a story where each chapter is a new series of paintings.

I start the process by making thumbprint-shaped cuttings from collected photographs of the 60s and 70s. Carefully selected, the tiny source image is translated to canvas and scaled up. The focus shifts with every new sort through the collection finding new meaning every time. A floral centerpiece, a scrap of textile, a framed painting on a wall have all been featured sources for a series.

Each body of work mirrors emotional preoccupations related to home and domesticity. Painting the Bermuda Nocturnes was a process of grieving my elderly parents loss of independence and the necessity for them to move closer, leaving our family home of 45 years. The work references found photographs of Bermuda’s harbor lights and nightlife fused with a desire to work in the tradition of nocturnes painting. Swatch Books celebrates my mother who was an interior decorator and who kept stacks of fabric sample books at home. These paintings depict one swatch of clothing or upholstery, simple in its singularity of composition.

As I long for aspects of my past through the photographs, I am also reconciling with a disruptive and nomadic life by creating new foundations from which to tell my story.