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About: I make surreal collage paintings that focus on emotion and internal personal logic. Materials such as beads, vintage fabric, wax, and thread help build a blank landscape to frame surreal figures. Collaged elements from midcentury texts and dated magazines seem simple and graphically appealing while also feeling stifling and imposing. Figures are given new personas by changing their faces to inanimate objects. These objects allow the innermost thoughts and emotions to be exposed. Another key element for me is when the handwritten and typed text is added to each painting. The text for me is when the painting turns into art. It is like the lyrics of a song you can’t stop thinking about or the phrase in a book that rolls around your head for months. The text typically feels pointed but is ambiguous enough to mean something different to everyone and is emotionally charged.

Construction: The collage paintings comprise two primary layers: watercolor paper and tracing paper. The pieces are painted, drawn on, written and typed on, sewn, beaded and waxed. The collage paintings have delicate, uneven, hand-sewn edges extending slightly over the varnished sides. Cold wax is added between the layers of paper to create a milky depth, soft sheen, and wrinkled surface. Each painting is signed on the back and is ready to hang.

*When you buy a painting from me it will always be an original. I never make or sell prints of my paintings.  This is because the painting would lose the different textures found in each painting, the perfect imperfections, and the beautiful waxy sheen that would disappear.*