Scissor Kick, 2010

In this new work, I have moved from the use of organic amalgamous shapes and lines to the use of an iconic object image: the scissor.

This object, which moves, cuts, transforms and eliminates, bears a relationship to the organic shapes and lines of earlier work because it functions through binary movement – not unlike, for example, two legs; but also because of it’s kinetic power: to amputate, stab, trim away.

Scissors have also been a fundamental studio tool for me so incorporating them into the work seems a natural integration of my process and its product.

My work has always had an organic, visceral, flesh-based aspect which I consider to be part of my concern with life issues such as vulnerability and passion.

Larger works incorporate this lexicon of scissor forms into an elliptical world of familiar imagery, creating a halo of detritus afloat in the white space of bare paper. This uncanny blend of organic and inorganic creates a visually complex but formally unified cycle of interaction and movement.

Roiling Balls & Morphemes, 2008

Newer pieces reflect a more sculptural view than previous work. They maintain the thread of transformation but extend and expand it to objects. Particularly the Madball, the Crazyball, and the Medusa Crown play with the limits of discrete forms, exploring where organic forms stop and objects start.

These works speak more to nature's endless capacity for growth and recursion. Like kudzu or bacteria, the shapes in the Roiling Balls have exploded exponentially from a seedling and threaten to overwhelm the forms that contain them.

Playful scale-mixing in Cow, Burden, and Fear  is also an expanded interest. Identifiable anatomic parts are integrated with contiguous shapes and textures that suggest coexistence of big and small, detailed and smooth, intricate and simple. As much as the eye wants to anthropomorphize these creatures, it is challenged to reconcile their organic nature with their lack of a consistent scale.

These can be seen as artifacts or curios. To the extent that they represent tests of an object's boundaries, they themselves feel like objects. Despite their motion and potentially unstable nature, they are discrete, self contained, complete. It is as if the unchecked process of nature they describe was somehow halted in the service of  documentation and collection.

Sensual Grotesque, 2005 - 2006

From sketchpad to small drawing to larger drawing, this work evolves from a line drawing to a watercolor and ink embodiment of animal, human, and found form that seems reasonable and monstrous at the same time.

The intimacy of hair and skin, recognizable to our private selves, is at once unsettling and gratifying. Although we think of ourselves as unique, our sexuality ties us undeniably to nature. The fluid slippage between human and animal reminds us - for better or for worse - that we are not as evolved as we would like to think.

The multiplicities of cloning, regeneration, and biological manipulation are an undercurrent, but my goal is to affect the viewer personally rather than politically.

Thus the work is not intended to shock but to create a moment of revelation, a space in the mind of the viewer that can be both relief and intrigue.