Skins and Vessels

This is an exploration of texture, materials and surface — integrated with a biography beneath the surface. Skin conceals. Contains layers. And infinitely sheds itself to renew top stratums. Yet, here is paradox. Skin cannot journey through life unscarred, no matter its renovation. Examination brings forth an apt underworld depicted in marred and pocked marks and punctures here and there.

The painstakingly multi-layered executed stained paper pieces, on heavy French rag is surprisingly dimensional throughout thick masses intertwined with subtle twisting skeins and cosmic splatters. The illusion of layers are integral to surface, for illusion is always the life beneath the surface.

Small stained paintings and assemblages are framed in what one critic called “strange and haunting little boxes” that “shrink the sacred down to human scale. The boxes are miniatures, either reliefs or stained paper, each its own chapter.

The work is intimate, so much so at times that its underlying aesthetic takes a stretch in its coming.