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Displaced

I have been looking to the past for feminine archetypal subjects in my latest series of paintings.  I loosely appropriates female figures from historical masterworks and displace them in reclusive, outdoor settings. I look to address universal concepts of femininity and feminine archetypes that cross barriers of time and place.  Themes of oppression, objectification, and stereotypes overlap with hopeful depictions of tranquility, unity, and stillness. 

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I enjoy studying the gaze and the pose of subjects within the paintings of of Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Frank Weston Benson, Edward Cucuel, Frederic Leighton, John William Godward, Alexander Cabanel, and William Adolphe Bouguereau, among others.  Their dispondancy is universal, and their their gaze and pose is perfectly appropriate in my obscure landscape settings.

 

Appropriation of these figures goes beyond the concept of master studies, because my intent is not to copy the painting style or replicate the original painting or subject, but rather to look into the eyes of the figure to say “I see you and I know you.  I would like to take you through time and place to a different existence. "

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Setee

I have a fascination with historical furniture.  The victorian setee is an functional artistic icon built for two.  I began this series of Setees in January 2021 when isolation was a daily norm.  Extra time was spent in our home, on furniture, with our immediate household.  Furniture became more important to me during this time, for aesthetic and functional reasons.  I I came to realize that the setee, with its strucural beauty, was a metaphor for the uncomfortable rest spent at home.  Setees assert themselves with confident, stoic beauty but  their insides are hard and cold.

I portray the setee from a frontal angle in this series. I exaggerate its simple 1-point perspective with stripes and shadows to create a graphic composition with obscure, painterly backgrounds.  The perspective invites the viewer into its dark beauty. 

Landscape

Stripes are a reoccuring theme in my work.  I was drawn to landscapes as subject matter because of the way I observed leading striped lines guiding the topographical nuances of vast lands. 

I am drawn to built and natural environments that elicit a sense of mystery, drama, and isolation.  Dark shadows hide the secrets of the land, and blasts of light expose the beauty.  My lands are lonely, stark, and graphic with a colorful hopefulness that shines through the drama. 

Atrium

At the start of the pandemic in April 2020, I began to paint Mid-century atrium spaces. I was looking to depict unoccupied built environments that intersect beauty and isolation.  Using furniture as the focal point, my intention was to create a sense of drama that draws a viewer into the outdoor spaces confined by post and beam construction.  
I look to capture an anxious sense of anticipation that a space possesses during an absence of social experiences, and the emotional baggage of its occupants that it holds onto. The empty chairs and dining tables are lifeless tableaus that serve as a metaphor for togetherness and divisiveness.  

 

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