Artistic Statement

I sculpt to explore issues of identity:  How do we negotiate the elusive intersection between public and private selves, between self and culture, particularly when technology has severed our connections to each other and our past?  I’ve looked to the archetypal myths and images of earlier cultures in my efforts to create communitas—self within a community.  In ancient societies, art was a collective, interactive experience; viewers were participants not observers.  My sculptures encourage this active engagement.  Experienced visually, they appear as self-contained entities, obviously abstract yet evocative of body parts or otherworldly creatures.  Experienced physically, they are architectural shapers of space.  Their openings invite viewers in, beckoning them to enter their enigmatic spaces.  

My goal is to entice people into a primal, subconscious engagement with the work.  And the best way for me to achieve this is with porcelain clay.  Its extraordinary plasticity and malleability allow me to push and blur boundaries, to explore places where intimate connections become viscous mergings and joined areas separate into distinct autonomous forms.  The shapes I create grow alongside one another and then shift and slide apart, reflecting the desire for intimacy and the fear of engulfment.