Artist’s Statement
In the art world, life drawing is the process of drawing from the live model. The intent or the challenge of these sessions is to draw out the life or capture the life of the individual. For me there are moments of divine realization while drawing the figure. The moments remind me that we are all connected by a force greater than ourselves. When these moments occur, the sensation is awesome. I am in awe. I experience a feeling of reverence that is mixed with wonder and fear.
This work is an attempt to create the moment of awe, to illustrate the observer’s respect for the fear and wonder in our everyday world. I’ve taken my life drawings which were done with ink, charcoal, pencil and conté, and collaged them with hand-altered papers, found images and additional botany drawings. The magic realism narrative is intentional. Objects of nature and architecture are juxtaposed with the figure in an attempt to show us the everyday world in new and unfamiliar ways. The work tells a story of the beautiful and the temporary and seeks to remind people that there are still many mysteries in this life.