Artist Statement
There have been several profound experiences that have made my art what it is.
The first was childhood. As a child I loved my Barbie dolls and setting up the play sets in my bedroom of the dream house, and camping set, the swimming pool, and all the accessories, clothes, and shoes and little plates and cups, furniture, etc., etc… for my friends to come and bring their Barbies and play for hours on end. My mother was always bringing something home for me, a little set of clothes hangers for doll clothes or little shoes, etc… For years, those little still lifes were a fixture all over my room.
The second was my time spent as a student at Otis College in Los Angeles as a fine art major It was like a fun, beautiful bubble. It was there that I began to bring together the many years of study of drawing, oil painting, canvas preparation, photography from junior colleges I studied, etc., etc…..and established the way I construct and create my oil paintings today. I studied the science of color and light and tonality. Kent Twitchell’s murals. Looking at Kent Twitchell’s mural of the doctors on the building of Otis College, day and out, as well as seeing all his murals that grace Los Angeles, was awe-inspiring! He gave me courage to have that kind of ambition.
My classical music training in piano is applied to the concept of the fact that the musical scale of the octave C major to high C, chromatically is the rainbow. Each note going up the scale is a color from Red as major C…..to Red as high C. I paint color combinations as though I am making musical chords. This is how the “atmosphere” is created in my painting illusion.
I love photography and learned to paint from a Photoreal painter. My technique is a fusion of 19th century Impressionists/tonality of the Renaissance/the photorealists of the 1970’s.
It was at Otis where I asked the genie for inspiration for a subject to paint. Barbies popped in my head…and here I am.
My goal is to create a full body of work, over 100 paintings are on the table, already created by me to paint of Barbie type dolls and other dolls. I set up my own still lifes, through the years, carefully intuitively inspired one at a time, like a child, I lovingly decide each little scene, like child’s play. My life is sort of full circle. I keep recalling my youth playing with these dolls. That is the approach and it must be pure. The success of my work is driven by this energy. This is not an adult imposition, not a feminist attack on Barbie or any silly jokes of sexual acts, etc. Like pages in a book, each painting is unique and strong unto itself, yet united through a common theme: a mirror of the times and age we are in, in every facet of that personality. Each painting is carefully painted from the fine craftsmanship of the custom canvases, constructed by a former engineer, to my gesso coating and sanding, four layers and glazes from lean to fat, with the highest quality paints and mediums, painstaking hours, days, months spents on each one. Hundreds of dolls from the mod era 1960’s through the present time, pink hair to green hair and new and vintage and everything in between.
Stay with me through my career and watch the body of work unfold. Thank you for your lovely time.
I love the magic of the miniature world.
All art is a mirror held up to society. Art imitates life, life imitates art.