Artists' Statement
Playing with watercolours is both playful and meditative for me. I love the way this medium has a life of its own, how it surprises me with unpredictable combinations of colour and water flowing across paper. I often choose a limited palette of colours for the way they speak to each other, the way they dance. Life perfectly matched ballroom partners, the umber sambas with the Prussian blue; the ultramarine tangoes with scarlet lake.
I'm most satisfied with contrasting a bold palette of colours against the softness of the watercolour medium, with intermingling hints of realism merging into impressionistic environments. As I work, I often mist the piece, encouraging the paint to flow into its own story; elusive and ethereal, the lines flow around soft edges, merging now into shadow, now into light, always asking me to listen, to follow.
It was like this from the beginning, when my younger brother, dying of cancer, gave each of us in the family a photograph of himself. For unknown reasons, I felt compelled to do what I'd never done before; paint!. Working on his portrait began the most open and loving relationship I'd ever had with my brother, and simultaneously connected me to a new beginning as an artist, which like the watercolours I use, has taken on a life of its own.
Playing with watercolours is both playful and meditative for me. I love the way this medium has a life of its own, how it surprises me with unpredictable combinations of colour and water flowing across paper. I often choose a limited palette of colours for the way they speak to each other, the way they dance. Life perfectly matched ballroom partners, the umber sambas with the Prussian blue; the ultramarine tangoes with scarlet lake.
I'm most satisfied with contrasting a bold palette of colours against the softness of the watercolour medium, with intermingling hints of realism merging into impressionistic environments. As I work, I often mist the piece, encouraging the paint to flow into its own story; elusive and ethereal, the lines flow around soft edges, merging now into shadow, now into light, always asking me to listen, to follow.
It was like this from the beginning, when my younger brother, dying of cancer, gave each of us in the family a photograph of himself. For unknown reasons, I felt compelled to do what I'd never done before; paint!. Working on his portrait began the most open and loving relationship I'd ever had with my brother, and simultaneously connected me to a new beginning as an artist, which like the watercolours I use, has taken on a life of its own.