With a Capital P:
Selections by Six Painters
May 11 – August 25, 2019
Elmhurst Art Museum

STILLNESS

ARTIST STATEMENT 2015

Most of the work in the show at Gallery Pink is from 2014–2015.
Each painting starts with repeated patterns felt as rhythmical movements. As the painting develops, I maneuver the lines and shapes - upsetting and resolving spatial equilibrium.

As I work on a painting, what begins to appear are fragments of images from what I have seen in the world – my textiles, house plants, architecture, people. I try to develop what the painting suggests, repeat it and vary it. My repeated efforts to work out the patterns and spaces become the layers of that painting.

ARTIST STATEMENT 2011

The work in "circles and bridges" and "here to there" have evolved from looking at bridges. I am drawn to the structural elements that make up bridges, their strong supports, the way they repeat and the spaces they create. The negative spaces between supports capture a strong figure/ground relationship that suggests a rhythm. And the rhythm moves and changes as the bridge's expanse moves through space.

I like to play around with the repeats, getting a rhythm going with the colors, lines, and forms, a rhythm of description. The description breaks apart and the elements fight for domination. In some paintings there are winning motifs, and in some paintings you are not sure which elements dominate. Within a limited palette strong tugs and intense contrasts prevail.

I also like to think about bridges as metaphors. How do you get from here to there? I love that they connect one aspect to another, that their purpose can be transitional, and that their physical existence is about their strength.

ARTIST STATEMENT 2008

For the past 25 years my work has focused on the relationship between space, form, and pattern as an investigation within the traditions of still life painting and pictorial space. My main subject matter has been my collection of hats. Their feathers, fabrics and forms have inspired ways of putting down paint – meshes, dashes, squiggles and lines – giving me a wide visual vocabulary of mark making. The work grouped the hats in ways that depicted deep space, shallow space, different viewpoints, as well as combining different ways of describing the hats’ volumes. The hats’ patterns and textures were drawn from direct observation.
I am very attracted to these hats on many levels. Their physicality excites me. Each one is a strong and particular object. There are hats which find their strength in the oddness of their shapes. Some have elegantly simple and solid forms. They suggest personalities. For many hats it is their color that is attractive. Then there are hats that are embellished with beads, netting, feathers, fake fruit, leaves, branches, and flowers, suggesting a whole garden. All of which provides a large visual vocabulary for painting.
Within each still life arrangement, attention is paid to hats placed inside, behind, in front of and across from other hats. Then there are those hidden in shadow, or glowing in light. The hats are placed on cloths with patterns or stripes. The arrangements set up a visual and psychological tension that interests me. Different bodies of work allude to landscape or portraiture, though all are still lifes.
After years of painting these hats representationally, I now find myself interested in flat, abstract forms and patterns the hats suggest. A peculiar pattern is invented: zigzags, alternating colored bars, squares within squares, braided diamond shapes, and jumbles. The patterns move, repeating and changing as they go around the form. There is the idea of volume as the pattern goes around the form, suggesting another kind of space. What the pattern changes into and how the space shifts may be unplanned and unpredictable within each work. In this body of work, hats are reinvented as forms with patterns that unravel, come apart, wind around and rebuild. Instead of painting the hats as hats, I’m painting what it is about the hat that interests me. While developing each painting, clarity is my goal as many layers of paint accumulate, and with clarity the intention of each painting becomes apparent.
Besides looking at hats I have been inspired by looking at textiles and architectural ornamentation, and particularly the geometric patterns on the surfaces of Mexican ceramics and architecture, and the bright, intense colors of the painted facades of colonial Mexican towns.