May 11, 2019
Structure, psychology, and the creative process are the foundation for much of my work, which often evokes modern architecture and energy.
After years of making shaped paintings and wall-mounted installations, I bridged the gap between my interest in two-dimensional and three-dimensional form and began making freestanding sculpture in 2015. In 2017, I learned to weld, significantly expanding my capacity to manipulate material.
My sculptures are often composed of various modules, serving as different iterations of an original form. I like to begin a work with materials I’ve selected, with only an inspiration. I manipulate the elements I’ve made (or collected), adding to them, rearranging and reordering them as something meaningful develops, a concept clarifies, and a title feels right.
Allowing flashes of insight throughout the process of assembling grants me more leeway in experimentation and frees me from the constraint of being bound to the original vision. In this sense, I allow the chosen materials to guide me as I emphasize various forms that speak to me.
Upon completing the work for my 2019 sculpture exhibition at Holland Tunnel Gallery ( my first sculpture exhibition after years of painting!) I was surprised by how many of the works have an association to my childhood. Indeed, my process recalls a spirit of play reminiscent of youth.
Structure, psychology, and the creative process are the foundation for much of my work, which often evokes modern architecture and energy.
After years of making shaped paintings and wall-mounted installations, I bridged the gap between my interest in two-dimensional and three-dimensional form and began making freestanding sculpture in 2015. In 2017, I learned to weld, significantly expanding my capacity to manipulate material.
My sculptures are often composed of various modules, serving as different iterations of an original form. I like to begin a work with materials I’ve selected, with only an inspiration. I manipulate the elements I’ve made (or collected), adding to them, rearranging and reordering them as something meaningful develops, a concept clarifies, and a title feels right.
Allowing flashes of insight throughout the process of assembling grants me more leeway in experimentation and frees me from the constraint of being bound to the original vision. In this sense, I allow the chosen materials to guide me as I emphasize various forms that speak to me.
Upon completing the work for my 2019 sculpture exhibition at Holland Tunnel Gallery ( my first sculpture exhibition after years of painting!) I was surprised by how many of the works have an association to my childhood. Indeed, my process recalls a spirit of play reminiscent of youth.
March, 2018.
My work explores the ability to create meaningful structures from everyday experience and observation.
My work explores the ability to create meaningful structures from everyday experience and observation.
August 2017.
When I graduated from art school, with a BFA in painting, I made the decision to be an abstract painter. My first series of work after completing my MFA was based on the idea that a painting is a 3 dimensional object. This led to interest in perspective, structures and energy.
Although abstract, my work always had subject matter, ( hinted at in the titles or series names) connecting art ideas with personal concerns, Much of it was mixed media wall constructions, relief paintings, assemblages, and shaped canvasses. Until 2015 everything hung on the wall,
In 2015 my first freestanding sculptures, City Blocks, which were exhibited with my Urban studies paintings at Gensler's Rockefeller Center headquarters gallery in NYC. The affirmation from that exhibition led me to attempt larger sculptures and installations which use color. In 2 years since those tiny scrap wood sculptures I have exhibited large architectural installations of painted cardboard boxes, 7'tall painted wooden sculptures, and 18' tall welded aluminum public sculpture. It's exciting to be able to use scale and environment as another tool . This seems to be where all those investigations were leading me.
When I graduated from art school, with a BFA in painting, I made the decision to be an abstract painter. My first series of work after completing my MFA was based on the idea that a painting is a 3 dimensional object. This led to interest in perspective, structures and energy.
Although abstract, my work always had subject matter, ( hinted at in the titles or series names) connecting art ideas with personal concerns, Much of it was mixed media wall constructions, relief paintings, assemblages, and shaped canvasses. Until 2015 everything hung on the wall,
In 2015 my first freestanding sculptures, City Blocks, which were exhibited with my Urban studies paintings at Gensler's Rockefeller Center headquarters gallery in NYC. The affirmation from that exhibition led me to attempt larger sculptures and installations which use color. In 2 years since those tiny scrap wood sculptures I have exhibited large architectural installations of painted cardboard boxes, 7'tall painted wooden sculptures, and 18' tall welded aluminum public sculpture. It's exciting to be able to use scale and environment as another tool . This seems to be where all those investigations were leading me.
January 2017
I am a collector of materials that can be used for my art…including scraps of wood. This collection and a glue gun was the beginning of my venture into sculpture after years of painting. Now I have a shop with power woodworking tools, and I buy lumber stock and commission aluminum models, but I still enjoy the process of creating something out of waste material. My mother passed onto me her depression era impulse to use or save everything.
Friedrich Froebel was the founder of the modern kindergarten in 1840. He designed basic wooden forms for children to play with, believing it would increase their ability to think abstractly. My feeling is that these toys, and a child’s experience of playing with them, form the foundation for modern architecture which inspires me, and of the sculptures I make.
Froebel’s gifts is a series developed from Broken Cube, an 8” ” high wood model I made.
Broken Cube fascinates me because of the way it frames the space beyond it, and how different it looks from each side. The different angles of the square beams' positioning cause the color to change as the light hits from different angles, or reflects one section onto another. While moving it around I realized that I could use it as a module to create a variety of larger structures. It can be positioned sideways upside down, and tilted just as a cube can.
I made enlargements of it in aluminum and wood, and smaller 3D prints in plastic. I loved arranging them and painting and then arranging them or engineering them with geometric shims to make something larger or more stable. I feel as though I have made my own toys.
. My art has always been a challenge fueled by curiosity…what will happen if I make X or do this to X? How can I create something that remind people of something else I have in mind? Can I fasten the parts together to make a permanent sculpture, or arrange them in stacks or rows to create installations?
This curiosity- fueled thought process is at the heart of my artmaking process
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
April 2016:
Since 2010 the main inspiration and focus of my art has been urbanism and architecture.
I am interested in the relationship of architecture to painting and sculpture,
and how art changes the viewer's experience of a room , a city area, or a landscape.
Perspective and structure are key elements of my work, which has always moved between 2 and 3 dimensions.
Using color with mapping and charting conventions , I reference the city's activities, transportation and utilities,
The city's history and relationship to surrounding highways , communities, water and power sources and its internet
impact and use are of as much interest to me as its buildings and people.
My current studio practice involves painting and creating indoor installations, The most recent installations are up to 10 feet tall , made of sturdy white cardboard boxes which I paint or to which I apply bands of silver or colored duct tape. Working this way has enabled me to have a playful dynamic approach in positioning the forms and colors as I have done in my paintings. People can engage with them in the way they interact with architecture. They are open enough to incorporate their surroundings and large enough that people can see through parts of them and move around them inside, under, and over parts of them. Plans are underway to fabricate these in metal for permanent installations for commissions and public works relating to the area in which they will be located.
January 2015:
Multiple perspectives , geometry, pattern, color and line evoke experiences of urban architecture and changing views as one moves through the city in subways, cars, escalators and elevators, and views the city from different vantage points.