Artist Statement
My paintings—oil on linen, set in ceramic or mixed-media frames—rely on intuition, personal history, research, and time. They question how images and stories are shared and translated across generations, asking: What role has visual culture played in writing our histories? Why have certain materials been championed in the history of art, while others—particularly those associated with women's work such as ceramics—have been relegated to the realm of craft? How can symbols be reordered and reframed to affirm primary desires that individuals share, while transcending the stories of our canons?
I am a third-generation Jewish New Yorker, living and working in the American South since 2018. In recent paintings I have been thinking about performance—as a means of recounting stories, but most importantly as a survival mechanism within an ever-shifting society. These recent paintings look to theater as a parallel space of paradox and suspended disbelief. They investigate the trope of "Mundus Inversus" (latin for "Upside-Down World") which began as a phenomenon in Greek drama wherein traditional roles were often reversed. Symbolism in my recent works draws from Yiddish theater, Greek drama, Commedia dell'arte, and music; while referencing the ongoing importance of reconciling gravity with levity.
My investigation into archetypal imagery is informed in part by Carl Jung's theories of the collective unconscious. I approach each painting without a clear plan, and by working in many layers of paint, I try to find synchronicity in combinations of colors, forms, and symbols. These combinations ultimately form their own narratives, which have strong resonances with both personal and collective experience. I hand-build multimedia frames for each painting through a similar intuitive process, elevating the frame's importance from a secondary status of ornamentation to a vital part of the artwork that demarcates a space of suspended disbelief, much like the proscenium of a stage.
