I create abstract and mixed media paintings and collages. My artwork is colorful and bold, while simultaneously muted and delicate. After leaving a six-year-long corporate career in the arts, I began to incorporate white or negative space in my work for the first time. This white space, juxtaposed against many layers of color and visible texture, provides my work with much needed breathing room – breathing room that was missing from my emotional state until I allowed myself to be free and permitted my creative practice to take the driver’s seat in my life. Creating that space has not only proven to be a mental and spiritual challenge, but it has significantly altered my process, leading me to work with new physical materials such as metal and think of my paintings as 3D objects.

 

I paint based on how I see the world around me and how my brain processes imagery. My paintings are fragmented, and I begin my process by making collages using magazines and whatever images I find that speak to me. I am drawn to the pre-war architecture of many New York City buildings, have studied French architecture in great detail, and regularly find myself getting lost in the intricacies of my favorite structures.

 

Willem de Kooning paintings have long been a source of inspiration for me. I have always been attracted to the many layers that make up a de Kooning, and am blown away by how visible such layers are when looking at his work from the side. The same goes for how I perceive nature's beautiful oceans and mountains – I absolutely love exploring the outdoors, with layers of colors, shapes, and textures serving as my muse. Collaging is my way of investigating the relationships between these colors, shapes, and textures, and, as I translate my collages into paintings, I dissociate the imagery from what it literally is in the “real world”.

 

While in my flow state, I use my hands far more than I use my brush, focusing on giving my artwork what it needs to evolve from a collage sketch into a painting that stands on its own. My process allows me to achieve a strikingly white negative space that serves as a counterpoint to intense fields of color. In 2022, I began working on a new series titled Moonshot. Across these four 50-by-60-inch paintings, white space permeates the canvases, playing a role just as important as that of the color, and representing my left, or non-dominant, hand.

Using my left hand, or adding white space, is very much an exercise in letting go throughout my continuous search for mental clarity. By pouring my paint and layering paper, fabric, and other found materials into these wet pools, I embrace the infinite possibilities that arise across every inch of these pieces.