The recent tragedy of losing my son has made it challenging to find meaning in my artistic expression. To navigate this journey, I turned to the tranquility of Chinese brush painting and Haiku, allowing me to articulate my emotions through simple lines, brush strokes, and words. This led to the creation of my Red Crane Series. As I crafted these works, I discovered my artistic voice and language for mark-making. The black of my mourning has become the color of my art, transcending into ‘Outrenoir,’ as described by painter Pierre Soulages. I’m fascinated by how black, often considered the absence of color, presents a range of hues through its reflective and absorptive qualities. My mark-making tools are scrapers, knives, pieces of glass and plastic, brushes, and squeegees. I use various densities of black, derived from hand-ground Chinese ink, carbon, mars, ivory acrylic black, and thick onyx house paint. I mix this up with my acrylic paint mixes. The different surfaces and light reflections create an intimate, endless depth on paper. By combining textures and geometric forms, I establish an organic motion. Occasionally, I incorporate acrylic reds, golds, or gold leaf. The layers in my work represent structures and forms of emotions, part of our individual consciousness, waiting to be touched and expressed. |
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