Artist Statement
In a world of sharply delineated borders, there is one language that easily scales fences, crosses oceans and finds itself translated into cultural traditions and legislation globally. That is the language of violence and oppression against women. Made speechless by the daily onslaught of injustice which insinuates itself into the most ordinary of life's tasks, the women in my paintings present a borderless world where viewers are asked to become a witness and ally.
My images are a complex layering of symbolism and iconography drawn from history, personal experience, current events, language, and mythology. An archetypal female form stands "Speechless" at the center of each piece.
These images are not retellings. The figures in the paintings transform their origins bringing the viewer to an imagined territory where women both wear the scars of their oppression and transcend them.
Brown, pink, grey or silhouetted; they are the woman next door, the girl in the desert and in a globalized world they are also you.
