origins | Works on Paper, 2025
These works mark a turning point in my creative practice.
Following a year of personal transitions- and a lengthy sabbatical taken to attend to matters- all I knew for sure was that I needed to work on paper and wanted to explore a less calculating, more intuitive approach to my painting process. Returning to the studio, I found some ink left over from a class project and decided to play around with it. A few hours later I was in love with a new process.
These paintings consist of acrylic ink, marker, and vinyl emulsion (flashe paint) on heavyweight watercolor paper. They combine organic lines and forms with precisely-rendered geometric shapes- the way I visualize the synthesis of nature and concept. For me, they are tree-like in form, rhythm, and intricacy- bringing to mind the juniper and pine trees that surround my home and studio.
The name “origin” came to me as I contemplated the way they evoke a sense of formlessness through the use of form. As the different elements interact, they become something less definable- a state of flux, movement, and transformation.
I feel the finished works suggest origin points- not fixed beginnings, but moments of emergence. They remind me that form is not the opposite of freedom, but its ultimate expression. Through the process of making them, I encounter both spaciousness and connection. They are a meditation on the way presence and absence, form and formlessness, continually give way to one another.