The general theme of my art has evolved around a strong intrinsic and romantic link between art and everyday life. I believe that life is art. Art goes far beyond its physical representation and through its essence, it awakens the senses to knowledge. My process of art making is a liberating and self-reflective pursuit. It is reliant on tapping into the unconscious and that experience practically manifesting as visual record in an artwork. Therefore every artwork I create represents a mediated moment between time and space.
I am interested in the human condition; constantly enthused by our interactions and evolution within the various environments. As a result the human figure is the chief symbol of expressing links to the emotional, psychological, physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects of our existence. Therefore, in my work the human figure mirrors humanity and the life force of nature to which I am attuned. I believe that our connections or disconnections to other beings motivate us to profoundly explore our own humanity. This may be linked to Carl Jung's model of the collective unconscious. Which expresses this duality: the unifying sensibility of the group emanates and unfolds from a mass of individual experiences.
In 1977, as a right-handed person, I began drawing and painting with my left hand in order to lay down primary form, tapping into personal archetypal imagery and bypassing the analytical thinking and training of the right hand. The right hand follows as the enabler, the organizer of the forms that the left hand had laid out. I later applied this approach to printmaking; the right hand became responsible for the technical aspects and the left hand allowed me to tap into the unconscious. Printmakers are trained to seek control of the technique, and the use of the left hand forces a release of that control. This opened up the realm of spontaneity.
In this theme of reinterpretation through process and marriage of the hands’ skills, the essential is refined but not tempered, contained with the framework of the formal structure that is technique. Conscious thought is introduced into the realm of impromptu gesture and intuition.
My willingness to subvert my initial concept to external change has made printmaking my primary medium of expression. Printmaking is a process whereby an image is perfected through many steps. It is a perfect embodiment of the duality I explore: on the one hand giving, on the other, limiting. The final outcome is uncharted at the outset, maybe even undesirable. A complete work becomes a product of a larger consciousness that comes from the passage of time, shaped by circumstance, and open to multiple perceptions of its meaning.