About My Current Work — Trace Fossils

Those who came before us left something of themselves behind – both directly and indirectly. We have inherited environments both beautiful and degraded, we have inherited city designs that support us and some that fatigue us, we have inherited inventions and ideas that are helpful and some that are destructive. And all of these things – all of these traces of the past – shape us for better and for worse.

My current body of work, Trace Fossils, explores how we are built on the traces of the past, entwine with the present, and collectively reverberate into the future.

These abstract ideas are expressed through a process of painting over many sessions – drawing inspiration from images of the past as well as the environments of the present, layering and removing marks, and constructing and dissolving the figure. The richly layered finished paintings – rendered in acrylic, oil paint, cold wax, and collage – give a sense of figures emerging from a collection of marks even as they dissipate into the environment around them. What have our ancestors bequeathed to us? What will we – as the ancestors of the future – bequeath to those who come next?

This body of work, like my art practice in general, is rooted in my background in environmental psychology. Finding ways to capture the essence of abstract ideas about people and their environments and pin these ideas down with simple art materials is a continual struggle. But it is paradoxically this very struggle that drives me to keep creating.

I was delighted when Flash Gallery in Barcelona asked me to talk about my work … and doubly delighted when FrikiFish Magazine covered the event. Read more here about the psychology and inspiration behind some of my work.