---

My multi-media works are stimulated by images, ideas and artifacts from the real world: tools, gadgets, photos, biology, history, and fashion, to name a few.  They are then sorted and mediated via the imaginative chambers of my mind. At times I begin absolutely certain of the concepts for my projects at hand, only to discover as it unfolds that other messages have been brewing, and these emanate unexpectedly from a body of work as it nears completion.

Physical movement and dualities are two themes that repeatedly enter my work. My experiences with improvisational dance brings an acute sense of the body in space which has clearly affected my two- and three-dimensional work.  Polarities create a visual and psychic tension, creating discomfort for me and challenging the viewer to become fully engaged.

Multi-media is seductive to me and provides a fluid structure for exploring these themes of movement and duality. Still versus energetic. Present versus past. Ordinary versus sublime. Fragility versus strength. Bizarre versus logical. Wall versus room. And - my all-time favorite - Real versus Surreal.  I see these opposites co-existing yet agitating and vibrating within a physical and psychic space. Space - real or represented - is always at the forefront of my mind. Although my players act out a fantasy, they are not so far removed from the absurdities of everyday life.  Through them, I send messages of playfulness, sadness, grace or meaninglessness, even beauty.

When I  attack a large wall with fast, flowing lines and marks, I am inventing anthropomorphic forms. By manipulating paint, ink, foam, paper, collage and found objects, I can invest a kinetic quality into an inert material or object. I grant myself permission to conflate unexpected materials and forms. A monochrome or pared down palette consisting of  black, white and grey reinforce the tensions that resonate among the images.The self-discovery that I experience is shot through with moments of power and anxiety.  Much of my practice is grounded in an automatic process favored by Surrealists as an access to the subconscious.

Although I am surrounded by the all-too-real chaos and gravity of the outside world, within my work and the space of my studio my hermetic vocabulary imbues meaning in each new piece.  I want the viewer to sense equally the confrontation, attraction and repulsion between forms. Their roles, whether played out in installation, on a board, wall or paper create a suspension that results in a new dance.