Artist Statement

For the past 23 years, making artwork has been an important and integral part of my life. I work through an intuitive process that is a reaction to materials, mark making, and the world around me. The images are not preconceived; they are automatic drawings and paintings that surface from inside me like improvisational poems or music. I often start by making a rectangle to define the space I am working in; I make marks, lines or smudging to start my search; each mark, colour or shape influences the next; something will start to form; if I go too far and the image is lost, I continue to see what else there is to be discovered. There is a visual narrative quality to the work; a dialogue that forms relationships between shapes and colours. There is often movement or a feeling that things are about to move or just stopped. The artwork is not forced; there is a sort of dance that is created between myself and the work, moving in time together, reacting to what is happening at the time of creation. The piece is finished when there are no more adjustments to be made. Each art piece is connected to every other piece that I make; it really is all one continuous work in progress. I do not usually title my work because I don't want to limit the viewers' interaction with any preconceptions of my own that they may not be able to understand. The work is therefore usually identified by the date it is created. For me, my art making is a form of meditation. My aim is to lose myself during the process of creation.