From a young age, I identified as an artist. I utilized art to ground myself and like many artists, put aside an integral part of my self-expression as I emerged into adulthood and focused on work, marriage, and parenting. My last taste of formal art was an art minor in my early years on the tail of a BS in Education. An Artist’s Way workshop 14 years ago reawakened by creativity. I took up photography and fell in love with Instagram, created artist trading cards, explored art journaling, and gradually grew brave enough to give my artist a voice again.
I have facilitated Creative Soulcare Workshops, supported fellow emerging artists with warm encouragement, and participated in the life-shifting work of Intuitive Painting & Soul Collage™, all significantly transformative for my own work. Since then, I have been growing a collection that integrates my love of paper, collage, acrylic, ink, pen, adhesives and brilliant metallics.
Stepping out into the art world with small pieces that felt big, I had my first art works accepted by Nude Nite Tampa in 2012, “Warm & True” and “Holding Spaces”—both expressions of finding myself and new directions. Since then I have continued to be represented in the internationally juried Nude Nite Tampa/Orlando, as well as Studio Waltz in Dunedin (2019-2021) among various other shows throughout the Tampa Bay area. My most recent body of work, and that in which I work more prolifically producing an average of 50+ a year, is founded in “Intuitive Painting” introduced to me four years ago during my reawakening at the Dunedin Fine Art Center. Painting is now a large part of my life again.
Statement
I am fascinated by the collective experiences and stories that weave through the human experience. As a storyteller, I often play with concepts of self-awareness, evolution and exposure, sensuality, vulnerability, and at times, whimsy. My work, in turn, exhibits similar narratives, providing windows to my own sense of self in order to connect to the rest of the world. I often identify deeply with the characters or scenes, finding pieces of myself on each canvas, small hints of my own being portrayed with a look, a posture, a color, or a connection.
My current body of work utilizes acrylic, ink, paper, tempera, stencils, and collage to create a sense of texture and contrast. I work in bold, vibrant colors, often blending directly on the canvas, sometimes pushing, washing, or dripping medium, or pollinating my brushes with different paint colors. I frequently integrate paper, either as part of a canvas, or as torn pieces placed in ways that create or highlight the figures in my work.
Much of my work reveals a surreal view of the human body, nature, or portraiture. I delight in portraying my subjects in colors and textures that often shift the viewer to examine the work more closely. There are often many layers, with subtle and careful selections of words or symbols, and a contrast of colors to reveal the subject. In the last few years, intuition has increasingly influenced my creative process, inspiring me to create with more boldness and flow.