Earlier Works – Cigar Boxes, Diverse Harmony, Presence, and Two Women
Cigar Boxes: A development of my collage work with the Aerial Views series and work on non-traditional surfaces such as ironing boards was a playful new series on Cuban cigar boxes. I used rich oil colour and whimsy and working as in collage with the layered notations and markings of the box to build the image in the traditional still life genre.
At Diverse Harmony This exhibition with the celebrated ceramic artist Jeannie Mah and myself showed the kinship between our thematic concerns, even when the materials used were very diverse in nature and scale, and yet connected by the themes and content in our works.
For Presence, I developed an organic series relating to the body in oil paint on transparent paper or vellum surfaces. I was rendering a swollen Lichee nut in various forms which for me alluded to the conditions of the human heart and the figure. The scale was important as they are seen as small moments of awareness. These seed-like figurative works lend to a range of sensibilities, as vitality, restfulness, renewal containment, vibrancy, ecstasy, and joy being present in life.
Two Women This exhibit was with printmaker Catherine Shapiro at the Chrysalis Gallery, and we were showing work that was pertinent to our lives as working women artists. I was struck by the quote from Jeremiah where he was promised a Wall of Bronze and I wanted one to surround and save me and my family and that inspired several pieces. In “Eulogy to My Mother”, I looked at how our lives are shaped by those who love us and those who refuse to love us and that was a sadly a principal factor in her far too short life.