Gallery

    In October, 2014, my husband and I moved to Buckhead in Atlanta following a trip to Italy the previous spring. The photographs we took in Italy provided the stimulus for a number of paintings. I found simple street level altars endearingly personal statements where some were placed in windows and some encased in exterior walls. They felt both timeless and spontaneous. I enjoyed photographing them along with all the other scenery. On return, I found myself wanting to do something with the images in my artwork. I started the underpainting with reference to icons. As I began my encaustic process of building up layers and scraping down, the first image that started taking shape evolved into Blue Dress with Red Buttons. I sat with it and found it odd and unlike anything I’d done before. As I walked and drove and listened to the church bells in my neighborhood and flipped through local event magazines, it suddenly dawned on me the concept of this new body of work. They are about the experience of living in Buckhead. We live in between the largest high churches of the city and the new development of high end shopping surrounded by “beautiful people” images on billboards. The churches are such a phenomenon that in the July 4th Peachtree Road Race this section of Peachtree is referred to as “Jesus Junction.” It occurred to me that my psyche was trying to make sense of this clash of images and values. The exciting process for me is putting these two contrasting elements into a piece and then struggling to make it work as a painting aesthetically. Sometimes the icon is a subtle part of the background. In others, both elements are clearly visible. In Hang Up a dress maker’s mannikin is filled with hangers. In Gemini Pieta a model and her shadow rest on the Madonna. I’m excited to discover where the journey of this process will take me.