I’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately and getting some questions about my art background. Here’s the short version, but more in depth than what you can find on my CV :)
I have always been interested in color and pattern. Even as a kid I was drawing lines, dots and making color studies in crayon. As I grew older I got more serious about drawing and mark making. My high school art teacher was a printmaker, so I started experimenting with printmaking as a teenager.
When I arrived for my first semester at university wanting to study painting, I noticed most of the paintings I saw in the department were figurative. I knew that was not going to be a good fit for me. At some point during my first year, there was an exhibition in the student gallery featuring work from the printmaking department. The work was so exciting! Complex, layered, abstract, sculptural, I was hooked. I also wanted to learn a specific technical skill set that I would not having the opportunity to learn with university level intensity elsewhere.
Screenprinting stole my heart, and for many years it was my primary process. I started doing some painting when I moved to Portland in 2014, but then started printing again when I joined Flight 64 Studio. I have been a member of Saltgrass Printmakers in Salt Lake City, Flight 64 Studio in Portland, and I am now a member of PRINT in Victoria, BC.
For the past five years I have been focused on painting and site specific art installations. When I start a painting, I often think in terms of layers, which is my print training shining through. Certain print elements such as repetition, the idea of multiples and utilizing the transparency and opacity of materials remains at the core of my creative practice.
I have lived in Utah, Oregon, Washington, and I now live in Victoria, BC, Canada. I’m currently influenced by interior design, architecture, surface design, minimalism, color theory, the emotive quality of color, and formal principles of design. Sometimes I make paintings influenced by my surroundings, and I found great comfort in painting about the landscape during the pandemic.
Now I’m introducing some new elements and intentionally using a more vibrant color palette. Stay tuned for more information about my new paintings! Sign up for my mailing list for exhibition and event information, and follow me on Instagram for studio musings.