All
my life I have studied what is underneath. The process of uncovering
layers—places that are vibrant, dark, passionate, mysterious,
hidden, and utterly luminous—excites me. Throughout my life what
has interested me most is seeing the psychological complexity in everyone
around me. I have focused my twenty-six year psychotherapy practice
on excavating truth—understanding and helping others to see what
is not immediately visible. As an artist, I work spontaneously
on a vigorous but unplanned search for answers, where each layer of
color and mark, each moment, each brush stroke informs the next.
Though as a woman and a psychotherapist I rely on language, I paint
from a place without words. Here I speak through my love of color,
through the textures of thick, sensuous paint, and with the light that
emerges through transparent glazes. My palette is informed by
what I see, internally and externally—the colors of water, light,
shadow, rock, erosion, pain, passion, fullness. Using many layers
of acrylic paint, I strive to build up a sense of breath and expansion,
wanting my viewers to be drawn into their own emotional layers and
interstices. In layering paint and color into palpable
textured areas on the canvas—sometimes thick, sometimes thin—I
access deeper and more complex levels in myself and in my work. Always
present for me is a vigorous pursuit of the balance between intensity
and stillness. This is reflected in the juxtaposition between
vibrant form and expanded space that is ever present in my paintings.
