Showing: November 28, 2017 – TBA

Showing at: Salon 1757

Historically, clothing has communicated social information such as sexual availability and fertility, class, or religious status. And garments of any kind nod to both the restrictions and the freedoms of a culture, narrowly defining the people who wear them. Women have been referred to as “dresses,” or “skirts,” and men as “suits.” I wonder what our world would be like if the message a garment carried were under the purview of its wearer and not that of their society? I see these empty dresses as emblematic of how much we do not know about a person, how much is theirs to define. Inside every garment – even traditional ones – can be a personal sovereignty that holds out hope for freedom, spiritual opening, and change.

Personally, my read on these paintings is changing all the time. My painting process is, in the moment, fast and unintentional. That said, I paint many layers over many weeks before and if a dress or other representational image emerges. Empty dresses ended up on these canvasses because my mind and hand were throwing me dresses. I understood, certainly months after I painted these, that in doing so I was mourning my mother, who died six years ago and whose absence is distinct in my daily life.

Artist Biography

Raised in the late Santa Clara Valley, I now paint, write poetry, and tend chickens & children in Oakland, California—my home of 30 years. While I have an extensive background in landscape design and textile art, I began painting with acrylics and some mixed media on canvas in 2015. I am self-taught, and I work out of my home in my basement studio. My painting style is probably called abstract and my process is intuitive—I don’t make plans in my head for the painting ahead of time. These days, my paintings can contain empty dresses, dreams, birds, arrows, hearts, plusses, numbers & words—all there in spirit whether layered under or floating on top.