A delicate balance
Sometimes I feel bound by place, space and time. I feel constrained and caged. I am an immigrant in a new country and I no longer have a place that is truly mine. There is no poetry available to describe this feeling. There is no earth or nature to connect my breath. There are no birdsongs I know.
There are these paintings.
In fits and starts behind my closed studio door, I find myself again on solid footing and learn the language once more of standing tall and strong in the one thing I can count on--painting. During this time, I live for that moment when a charcoal line meets vibrant paint and the surface of the canvas becomes electric. The charcoal is a direct extension of my hand; the motion created along the painted surface as it splinters and cracks with its rich yet fragile quality entrances me. My materials seem to know my secrets and can express them long before I realize what they have done.
These paintings hold my fears, my love and my dreams--a conversation between shape and line, insular and enmeshed, strident and strong, floating alone in silence or teetering on the edge. In a careful balance, these paintings represent relationships past and present as I maneuver a new world.
Give me a charcoal line and I will show you my heart’s story.
