The empty coats and dresses of my recent work reflect on identity as both journey and construct, accumulated and fabricated from the critical moments and turning points that indelibly mark our lives. Clothing simultaneously transforms and disguises, exposes and hides; my paintings represent the subconscious in the act of transporting the past into present and future imagination.
My work is figurative, yet abstract in the sense that I see the surface as a skin, its drips, blotches, scratches and slashes suggesting the gradual accumulation of events and their corresponding traces. For me, the sense of accumulation and construction in the surface of the work creates an intriguing tension with the sense of a single captured moment - frozen, blurred, and imbued with emotional force.
Painting the garments that we use to cover ourselves, allows me to lay bare thoughts and feelings rarely exposed. I paint that which we use to shroud the soul but instead of obscuring what there is to hide, the dresses themselves reveal an interior world of unspoken secrets, leaving the artist, and at times the viewer, feeling just a little bit naked.