Opposing Tendencies

This body of work spans two years and reflects my dual interests in picturing the visible world and my emotional/psychological world.

When I work observationally, on still life or the human figure, I gravitate to drawing materials—charcoal, pastels, colored pencils and graphite. These tools are hard and precise and—if I’m patient—help me to render what I see with clarity.

For inward-looking work, I favor acrylic paint—an infinitely malleable and forgiving material that invites addition, subtraction and layering of information, and a slow discovery or distillation of meaning.

In most of my pieces, even the overtly representational, I am interested in creating an intersection between abstract and realistic elements. This effort to achieve a unity of dissonant parts or opposing tendencies reflects my own internal struggle to unite mind and body, intellect and emotion. It points to other dissonant human experiences as well—idealism and cynicism, love and hate, darkness and light, insecurity and confidence, amplitude and scarcity. These conflicts rivet and taunt me. How can they be reconciled visually in my work, and internally in my life?