
My most recent body of work, Certain Dark Things, is
named from a line in Pablo Neruda's poem Love Sonnet #17. He states, "I
love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow
and the soul." It is this idea of secrecy and things both physical and
psychological existing in shadow or in private that I am exploring through a
minimal palette and a focus on describing form that at once seems familiar but
is ultimately unrecognizable. With a tendency toward a vortex-like composition
I am constantly working to expand that circular motion with a controlled velocity
of mark making to reveal fragments of representational form, hands, limbs and
flesh. These references to the body can be traced to my
vantage point as a yoga teacher. In class I stand before a sea of twisted,
inverted bodies moving in space. Fragmentations of flesh exposed and cut into
by tightly woven bands of fabric slash through the air. These bodies move from
one posture to the next all heaving and connected by breath. At certain times
they are so synchronized in their movement they become a single living,
breathing entity made up of a multitude of parts. The same is true of these
paintings. They connect and synthesize through a network of closely related
elements. Swirling gesticulations of texture, form and color, scratched,
dripped and drawn, record the rise and fall of energy and fierce physicality
with which each piece is executed.