Artist’s Statement
I am a painter of prayers. I create visual psalms of joy, lament or contemplation striving to capture the sense of spirit and grace found in a particular place and time. In my paintings I seek to make reference to the natural world in a manner which speaks to reverence of the divine in daily life.
In the present series The Liturgy of the Hours, I aim to capture a single moment, to give visual and emotional expression to these traditional hours of prayer. My process involves ritual and meditation. It is a counterpoint outside the cloister to the balance of work and prayer which comprises the daily lives of monastic communities throughout the world. I find inspiration in readings from various faith traditions and practices such as yoga, prayer, silence and guided meditation. I use such methods to become an instrument through which the work might flow from a greater force than me alone.
Landscapes have been abstracted from closely cropped figure drawings to symbolize the interconnectedness of all things in life and their relationship to the divine. Humans are of the earth itself, live best when we are in harmony with the land, and ultimately our physical bodies will return to it. Textures and brushstrokes are kept minimal to suggest a stillness and meditative quality as would be found during a moment in prayer. Both light and color have long associations with spirituality. For this reason the luminosity that oil paint can bring to a work makes it my media of choice.
From medieval manuscripts to Byzantine icons, gold leaf has been used to signify the importance and sacredness of images and texts. My use of gold is meant to point the viewer to the sacred aspects in nature, man and that spark residing in all of it. Like the Amish quilts with their intentional mistake in a block, I am the less than perfect human instrument, not the higher power, in this creation. Therefore the choice of the more humble gold paint instead of real leaf is a symbolic one on my part.
As with abstract artists in more recent times I consider the colors a part of this mystery as well. Painters such as Kandinsky and Rothko have used their colors intentionally to evoke a sense of the spiritual. Assigning particular attributes to individual hues or working intuitively with what felt right in their own soul, color, light and rich embellishments are all ways in which artists have tried to make visual reference to the divine unseen as they know it.
Incorporating the ancient symbolism of the circle (the divine) and the square (man), I am making a statement about the concept of the artist co-creating with God. Working intuitively to create these depictions of space and time, I contemplate my place in this world and what may lie beyond it. At the same time, I want to convey the transcendent power and sense of mystical other which can come to us when we are truly in the present moment.
