Mrs. Arthur Knowles Needs Sleep Painting

My work deals with the metaphor of painting as imaginative play. I remember as a child that play was as a re-enactment and re-interpretation of the interesting aspects of the world around me, which often consisted of children’s media. The play I indulge in as an adult often contains motifs of family dysfunction, sparsely populated landscape, and 18th-19th century European painting. Many of my works are made on unstretched canvas or paper with an air of nonchalance. Continuing the metaphor of painting as play, the viewer is considered a voyeur. Although included in some pieces (such as “Garage Sink Rug,” in which the viewer is invited to treat the unstretched painting as a functional mat), the viewer performs as a witness to the imaginative game. I enjoy leaving the line between abstraction and figure ambiguous -- the piece might suggest humor or discomfort, but the viewer is not given any hint other than the invitation to wonder.