Oil on Canvas
50×42
2024
The idea for this painting came in a dream. I had taken photos of my father in law while resting after a hike. My children are playing in a stream in the background and my father in law is reflecting on being a father. The March light was streaming in between the bare trees. About a month later I dreamt that my husband, his son, was sitting on the log with him. At the time, the two men had been exchanging written letters and I wanted to make a painting about the relationship between fathers and sons.
I made several compositional studies for this painting before landing on the two figures touching but facing away from each other. The tree trunks in the background reinforce ideas of connection, growth and lineage.
The use of gold paint was inspired by the gold leaf in early renaissance Sienese paintings. From Vulliard, I inverted the idea of painting women in domestic scenes so that they appear to merge into the fabrics and wallpapers of their domestic setting. In my painting, the men dissolve into the outdoors – growing and aging, solidifying and fading – along with the natural world.
50x38 inches
Oil on canvas
2024
Sometimes I have a clear sense of my story before I begin a painting, but sometimes it emerges along the way.
In this painting, I found myself representing the house in a fragmented way and that became part of the narrative. I was feeling the fragility of life — how tenuous safety seemed for all of us, the constant vigilance I felt, even in joyous times.
The seed of this idea started with a photograph of my daughter on our font porch. I began researching arches and porches and other transitional spaces. In medieval paintings, only holy figures are positioned under archways. I happened upon a relief of a greco-roman athlete leaning on a hoop which reminded me of the pink hula hoops my kids had been playing with.
I made several compositional studies in an attempt to capture movement and repetition. I was thinking about Lennart Andersons street scenes with bodies colliding.
In this painting I love the contrasts between the seriousness of history and the playfulness of childhood, the chalky past and the vividness of contemporary times.
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80x60 inches
Oil on Canvas
2021-2023
This painting was influenced by the Italian mannerists, in particular Pontormo’s painting Joseph sold to Potiphar. In Joseph sold to Potiphar the brightly dressed figures snake up and back into the painting. Joseph, in the foreground, is the favorite son.
In my version, my family soaks up the last rays of summer at the threshold of our barn. Buckets and bee traps extend the serpentine shape of their overlapping bodies.
38x24 inches
Oil on canvas
2024
Private collection
Oil on canvas
65x67 inches
2022
Private collection
Book of Hours
34x32
Oil on linen
2024
Available through The Painting Center
37x25
Oil on canvas
2023
Oil on Canvas
36x24
2022
Private collection
Oil on Linen
54x48
2021
Private Collection
For this painting I borrowed the central figure from Paul Gauguin’s painting “Para Api”, “Is there anything new?”. Gauguin’s painting embodies disillusionment. He had recently traveled to Tahiti but hadn’t found his mythical paradise there. My paradise in this painting is my home but with two small children needing constant attention amid a global pandemic I was longing for something else in my own right.
I started this painting in June, 2020. Since then we have disassembled parts of our kitchen and uncovered layers of wallpaper and flooring. I used some of those patters inside the cupboards and on the floor. Ghosts of what came before.
Oil on linen
52x48 inches
2022
Private Collection
This nearly life sized painting took over six months to complete. I took inspiration from the dramatic fabrics in Poussin’s Massacre of the Innocents and from the frozen-in-time gestures of Titian. I was thinking of the three graces circling the pool: mirth, elegance and youth. I am lifting the towel, both the observer and observed, in this time of strange weather.
36x23
Oil on Canvas
Oak strip frame
2023
Oil on canvas
20x13
2022
Private Collection
20x24
Oil on linen
2021
Private Collection
