Ravel #1

Description

Artist Statement – Trust

I have been an artist most of my life. From a young age, the process of making art has always been the alignment of body, soul, and mind. Pretty simple, never easy, and always a place to return to.

Currently, I am exploring the connection of time, sound, and memory through textiles and encaustic.  Initially, I started out trying to paint sound and investigated how sound works and how we hear it. I wanted to see it and to paint it. There is something fabric-like about the technical aspect of sound, so I started collecting fabrics, particularly textured fabrics. I had been learning to work with encaustic and thought that I could somehow combine the fabric and the wax. Many experiments and many failures.

The collection of textures that I use are found in existing and discarded textiles such as fishing nets, clothing, and industrial filters. Some pieces are created, knitted, knotted by me. There is a deep connection with the use of my knitted pieces that evokes a lost time of making garments by hand and the memory of learning this from my mother. Pressing them into the wax almost fossilizes that time. My encaustic technique requires the continuous process of layering and scraping back. The layering and scraping are a metaphor for covering up something sacred and then excavating to explore something new with echoes of my first marks. Every piece I work on is built on trust. My art is the exploration of the paint, the surface, my life, my memories, what I see and how I see it.