ARTIST STATEMENT

The horses came into being slowly over time.  They lived in sketchbooks and odd pieces of paper, collecting dust for decades, or occasionally taped to a studio wall.  Sometimes they appeared in dreams, other times they simply trotted across my consciousness; waiting.  

 

The image of the falling horse is beautiful, absurd, even distressing.  It plays with our sense of expectation, running counter to what is possible.  There is something deeply unsettling about the image because we do not wish it to be; we cannot conceive of it being, even when confronted with it representationally.  Cognitive dissonance is a tool of resistance.

 

I was a non-objective abstractionist for nearly 3 decades. In May of 2024, the horses would wait no longer.  They asserted themselves and I was finally open to receiving them.  The challenge presented was twofold: how to honor my longstanding material processes while introducing figurative language, and how to respond to the times we are living through in a way that hopefully transcends the moment. Much of contemporary art focuses on identity and the individual lens, whereas I seek to address the collective experience from my perspective; informed by my culture and identity yes, but made broad because we are all living through this moment..

 

The horse can be a symbol of empire.  It can represent strength and power.  Yet it is also vulnerable, at times even fragile.  These powerful beings take on a very different read when inverted, which is a subtle reference to the Tarot.  Freefall induces anxiety for some, liberation for others.  We understand that which is powerful is always capable of failure and even demise, and therein lies our hope as well as our despair.  To our pain, we do indeed live in interesting times.  

 

Some figures are broken, plummeting through space or breaking planes.  Others are impossibly suspended, speaking of a tension that permeates our national conversations.  The outcome is not offered; the situation itself is the point of discussion and the invitation for dialog.  

 

I still utilize the oversized Asian calligraphy brushes, painting horizontally with fluid paints. The drips and sweeps are part of an established choreography in the studio; ritualistic, meditative, and improvisational.  For me the looseness of the brushwork allows these creatures to remain in the abstract, and therefore the liminal space of our imagination.  As with our democracy, we have yet to determine how this transition will fully realize itself.  Are we crashing into oblivion?  Are we transcending into something greater?  I don’t seek to answer these questions.  I only wish to ask them alongside you.