ARTIST STATEMENT
I am deeply influenced by the urban landscapes that I have explored and inhabited throughout my life, and my work is grounded in those spaces. They provide an infinite source of textures, shapes, and patterns. Growing up in NYC I was enveloped by the city and the life that it contained. The architecture as well as the fashion, graffiti, and street life left a deep impression that I continue to investigate. This fascination with urban environments along with my insatiable wanderlust has led me to some unforgettable cities.
While living in Taipei, I was able to travel extensively throughout Asia, visiting Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore. I was particularly drawn to the cityscapes of Taiwan because of my cultural roots there. The sub tropical climate created an urban environment that I was less familiar with. While the spaces triggered memories of growing up in 'the city,' the intense intrusion of natural growth challenged those memories. Mossy concrete walls and foliage filled ruins in the city were at once familiar and new. I am drawn to that contradiction, urban spaces that feel familiar and universal, but also specific, and distinct to themselves.
I have always been interested in spatial experiences and how they translate into memory. Our memories can live in many forms. They can appear to us as clear, organized, and at other times, haphazard and blurred. Thus, my paintings move between the real and the abstract much as our memories shift.
As I move through the world, I sketch and photograph the details of the urban spaces that I explore, so that I can bring those places back to my studio. In the studio, I am able to investigate the textures and colors of the city in rich layers of oil paint. I play with the scale of the city, sometimes filling my canvas with massive structures and architectural shapes, and other times depicting an eroded patch of wall with a few blooms of moss and marks of graffiti. As I paint I play with my own memories and associations, along with my references and gathered materials, to create individual series of paintings. Through each series I am able to create a cultural catalogue of specific experience and place, but as a whole my work carries a deep love of urban spaces, and a desire to explore the memories and contradictions there.
