In contrast to water’s quick mutability, yet aligned to its drip-by-drip persistence, my drawing process is a slow and meditative practice, a patient accretion of simple marks and translucent, layered washes that results in intricate forms resembling sea foam, cloud formations or wave patterns. Complex patterns emerge from an iterative process akin to the self-generating growth of natural structures. The water-based paint I use is as liquid as my subject: it drips, splashes, flows, evaporates and spills in unpredictable ways. I often use reflective and iridescent media such as mica, metal leaf and chrome ink to create surfaces that change, as water does, with each shift of light, in a visual play between surface and depth that responds to the viewer’s movements.
Mark-making takes the brief moment of the hand’s movement and holds it still, recorded in the mark that remains. Growing breath by breath, the slow, repetitive drawing method I employ makes each painting a receptacle of time, a net that gathers up these moments so they are visible in a single instant that shows the timespan of the artwork’s own making.
