I am a visual storyteller and contemporary printmaker. My work focuses on the use of symbols, visual references, and layers that convey a literal or symbolic story within a body of visual art. I stack and float transparent mediums, form and color, onto windows, walls, floors and ceilings of site-specific installations. Infusions of light fluctuates within the environment and create shadows and reflections that enhance the interpretation of the elements. The transparent nature of each installation, along with its shadows and reflections, creates depth, adding context and content not otherwise obtainable. The content within my work conveys a story - allegorically, figuratively, symbolically, and literally - about the spirit of individuals and the communities they live in.
Our world is becoming one large community. As we struggle with compassionate unity, cultural exchange is essential. With the powerful influence of modern technology, the relationships between individuals, communities, countries, ethnicities, politics and economics is rapidly changing. The sharing of cultures and ideas, despite differences and diversity, is more important than ever before. From my perspective, storytelling and visual art helps bridge these gaps. The arts can present knowledge and experience from different viewpoints. Not only our similarities, but also our differences and diversity, can be explored and celebrated. The cultural connections we facilitate help create global links, and the arts can facilitate tolerance, compassion, and unity.
My current installation project includes work I am doing with groups of participants from a variety of demographics, ranging from hospitalized children and homeless children to senior citizens, in an exercise that builds new story lines of individual worth, identity and empowerment, in relation to creative thought. My group projects range in a variety, but in one of them, I guide participants to create visual representations and individual ‘identity symbols’ that tell their unique stories. Their interactive process is completed when they place their unique symbols into large pop-up collaborations. The resulting content tells all about the group of individuals, without focusing on typical character tags, stereotypes, or identifiers, and the final project culminates with my installation that merges the discovery and interpretation of identities and creative voices, in a unique and powerful visual story of individuals, within a context of “what is community?” The sense of cohesive community is further strengthened with viewer participation; as they engage with the installation by progressing through the labyrinth of hanging and suspended story components, they become a part of the visual community themselves. They will also have the opportunity to create their own ‘identity symbol,’ and add it to an onsite pop-up collaboration at the formal exhibition.
Printmaking is an art of layering and unpredictability. I see the world from the eyes of a Printmaker - in layers. I am a product of layers; my experiences are in layers; I think in layers. The diversity of printmaking gives me a process of working within a range of subtle to strong with transparency and form, all of which represents a shifting perception, depth and variation of meaning. My layers are tangible and intangible. They represent structure, reality, and the physicality of the world: literally and figuratively. They represent all you cannot see: thought, emotion, time, whispers and echoes.
My investigation of printmaking also includes working with different surfaces and materials to create prints with light and shadow. This adds a sense of depth and emotion beyond the scope of my traditional works on paper. Layers of light
and shadow, and the forms that create them, bring visible integrated meaning that transcends flat surfaces. Depth within vision brings depth within meaning, thereby adding context and content not otherwise obtainable.