Light and shape drive my work. I make painted paper collages based on observational drawings. My collages celebrate visual moments in the immediate environment. When I incorporate the figure, rather than having a person pose for me, I prefer to watch someone moving spontaneously. When I approach a new subject, I make a lot of gestural drawings and representations of the space in my sketchbook. I construct my collages directly from the drawings. In this game of telephone, absent from the subject, color becomes exaggerated and specificity varies. Negative and positive shapes are equivalent powers that play off of each other. For example, if I’m making a chain link fence, I cut the diamond shapes in between the fence wires as I’m making the fence itself. Working this way allows for small anomalies to happen, like a green bush that bleeds over into a building.
