My artwork explores autobiographical themes as they relate to the world in which we live. My delicately rendered, powdered graphite drawings of the Fragment & Quietus series document and respond to incomplete quilt fragments collected from my family home.

The prints in the Arrangements series record multiple floral arrangements gathered from my home garden and which serve to mark domestic events (e.g. changes of seasons, a dinner guest, a new bloom), and the celebratory nature of such events.

This autobiographical focus has led me to my most recent drawings that reclaim magazine clippings from the clutter of junk mail arriving at my front door (Pages). In a sense these works create artifacts that give order and illuminate my response to the loss of a parent and memorialize my domestic space and life. In this artwork, clusters of flowers serve as a focus for contemplation of the universal issues of the human condition. Throughout recorded history, people have used flowers to express themselves, to enhance their surroundings, and to commemorate important rituals and observances. I draw inspiration from historic Flemish and Dutch still-life paintings. These historic paintings served as a memento mori intended to underscore life’s transience, which I capture through the manipulation of material and the development of imagery. My contemporary approach to the subject matter evokes a strangeness and sadness. The melancholy nature of the work both celebrates and mourns. While autobiographical in origin, my works’ scale, material, and manner of installation establish and maintain an intimacy with the viewer through the communitas of shared experience.