I believe in the things unseen and that they, as well as the natural world are as important as we are. I find our societal model absurd. Creating allows me to exist in our world and stay present., rather than looking for the answers outside of myself. A sense of lightness and freedom are at the core of my practice. Lately this takes me to ideas of identity, connection, longing, belonging and notions of home. I use faerie tales and play with scale and distortion to highlight the magic of living and the strangeness of our reality. Through layers of washes, marks and brush strokes I explore until I see an entry point. As I follow that thread I often remove as much as I add. This construction/deconstruction continues until the painting is finished and I feel a delicious bit of space inside myself. I see this as parallel to our human struggles with authenticity. Creating a painting is like mining my souI. I cannot help but be drawn to abstraction as an apt metaphor for our earthly state. But the balance between representational and abstraction in my work is dynamic. Fighting between raw and polished, spontaneous and controlled. Ultimately as I know myself to be not so different from my fellow humans, I hope to speak to the collective narrative.