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| Mirissa Beach (detail) |
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My paintings are made slowly, sometimes taking several months to complete. Often, I change direction mid-stream. Layers of impasto are applied with a pallet knife interspersed with thin washes of color applied by brush- blurry, abraded marks move across the painting with uneven rhythm, often irrespective of the image. My relationship with the paintings “skin” occupies my attention. It’s integrity and its fragility tells me when the painting is complete.
Growing up visiting ancient Italian murals in churches and villages throughout Italy, with my art historian father, formed an early model for personal narratives. My influence in Italian murals is evidenced in the dual interest I have in both the pictorial and the physical surface of my paintings. The shallow stage-like space of quattrocento paintings gave me a standard for close inspection of the figure or still life objects. This space allows for intimate observation and narrative.
In 2010 my family and I lived in the lush and troubled land of Sri Lanka, and the serenity and chaos of that perplexing environment is reflected in some of the paintings in my most recent body of work.
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