Statement

Working on a flat table and using a black pen, I hand-draw lines that coalesce into a field or form. I choose from a vocabulary of familiar marks which have evolved for me over many years: little lines, dots, small ovals and circles. The symmetry of my work suggests a very mechanical approach using rulers and grids, but although I make preparatory sketches, my drawings are always done freehand. The marks grow slowly from the center, moving outwards, evolving organically, each according to its own cadence, following an intuitive path. The freehand lines are important to me – I think they have more presence, more soul when they are a little wobbly, and a little bit imperfect. Each mark exists to me as evidence of a distinct and patient process, an incremental growth and an accumulation that requires a minute attention to detail. My process is slow, iterative and very meditative. Drawings take days and weeks of multiple sittings to reach completion.

My influences include many minimalist and process artists such as Agnes Martin, Sol Lewitt, Agnes Denes, Mel Bochner, Anne Truitt… as well as the installations of Robert Irwin for their sparseness and challenges to perception. The land always inspires my work. Sometimes in ways more literal – in terms of form or pattern, but always in the way that the silence and beauty translates for me into marks on a surface. The quiet of place, the texture of wind and grass, the shape of rock, tree, and plant, the texture of lichen or the surface of water – these things inform the marks that I draw. 

I am interested in experiences of time, space, and sound. I want to draw the hum of everyday life…acceleration, speed and movement, and also to stop that movement both visually and experientially. The shapes I draw often mirror microscopic or cosmic landscapes, zooming in to suggest cellular structures and then out again, into a sort of vast hyperspace. Because of the multitude of marks, these drawings are never still, though they seek to capture a moment in time, a suspension of sound or thought, a paused chaos. The white field which holds the marks serves to create silence and space, while the simple black and white lines illustrate a detached motion or sound – textural, like static or soundwaves.

I’m also curious about the process of making a drawing - the experience of collecting and planning marks, the repetition of drawing the same shape again and again, and the pause, silence, and peace that comes with that process. Gaston Bachelard said that we rest in the comfort of habit, and there is a definite comfort for me in the repeated line and gesture. I seek to find a quiet and stillness in this work that can be quite challenging to find in the current of a fast moving world, and my hope is that these drawings serve as a similar resting place and pause for my viewer, where one can land for a moment in the lines, experience a slow movement from center outward, and perhaps untangle the chaos of reality to slow down, mark time and be still.