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A lifelong kinship and identification with animals has created empathy with the life force, and has helped me to express what it is to be here as a flesh
and blood being. Through a close relationship with animals, I feel as if their bodies are the same as my body. Since the
earliest drawings in the 1980’s, I have explored the interaction between the
animal nature and the human psyche. Mysterious and intimate
characters act within an inner landscape, similar to dreams.
There is a purity and
a sacred/profane spirit in the animal nature, something we often overlook as
humans, as we live in a technology driven, industrialized society.
The myth in my art is
intuitively known in my body, and not based on recorded mythology. We are animals....Animals
are within us. Animals are symbolic of the natural world. They possess
knowledge and innocence, darkness and light. Their eyes invite us into their
world.
Coming from
sensual/spiritual desires, a metamorphosis happens as I caress the
surface, using pastels, wax, and clay, and working the surface with
my hands.
Simplifying
the recent paintings and sculpture to portrait-like heads has revealed their essence as an intimate connection. In “The
Corridor Series,” animals exist in both ecological and psychological corridors.
They are taking a stand, vanishing and returning. They are on the outside,
inviting you to either join them, or to invite them into the viewing realm.
“The Corridor Series” is both autobiographical and universal, having to do with
personal feelings of various states of empowerment, and, expressing the similar states and plight of the animal nature.
Since 1979,
I have spoken and sung in “Animal Tongues,” which has been recorded, performed,
and included in installations. It expresses the emotions and the mystery of the
animal nature, and enables me to live and see clearly.
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