Artist’s statement
As a woman, the way I behave and express myself is shaped by the cultures I was brought up in. Gender roles, characteristics and activities are not innate, but are socially constructed. Further, my gender roles morph, contract and expand in time with the passing years and responsibilities. I find myself trying to deny my aging but also wanting to reconcile and make peace with the inevitable changes to my constructed female role. This series of paintings contemplates these transitions and examines ideas around femininity, beauty, gender, age and intimacy. My work begins with second hand clothes; I search for garments that offer a history or a counterpoint and my models are the women in my life. I am using myself as a model more and more but with all these women, I am seeking overlooked details and intimacies that are only revealed through long and careful observation. My paintings are quiet and my palette subdued, in an effort to open an honest dialogue - hopefully with my viewer but ultimately with myself.
