Within my work is a subtle language of images. Conveyed through images of trees, secluded forests, bundled-organic objects, and penumbral archways, the message is both environmental and personal. A bundled-organic form is a recurrent image or motif in my work symbolizing a journey - a spiritual journey. It also represents something precious, something cherished extracted from the landscape that must be preserved - wrapped and bound with cloth and tied with string, rope or wire for protection. In the drawing, Earth-patch Bundle (1990), and in the painting series to follow, a bundled-biomorphic form is free floating in a mysterious atmosphere and appears to be levitating in the treetops above or hovering in force fields of it’s own. It has a strong and haunting sense of presence appearing to have no boundaries....traveling beyond the limits of space and time. At times the forms are combined, layered and erased creating traces of a more ambiguous form vanishing and reappearing. Translated into a three-dimensional work, Twig Bundle (1995), is cast in bronze. The bundled-organic form is emblematic of a spiritual journey and the connection with a higher consciousness.
Personal beliefs expressing a deep-spiritual connection with nature are infused throughout the work. I am not so much depicting the appearance of the landscape in my work, as the animating, molding forces that run through it. The title of a drawing/sculpture series, In the Tree Cradle (2003), references an ancient Chinese painting, In a Mountain Hut (1700), in which the figure is surrounded by surging energy of multiple, sinuous, contour lines ‘that suggest the vital arteries of an organism’. Qi, pronounced ji, is the constantly moving energy found in all living things according to Tao Philosophy - a prime focus of the Chinese landscape from the earliest times.
In past works, language has played an integral part. As evidenced in the exhibition, If Stones Could Speak (1997), O’Kane Gallery, the three (3) sculptures and their titles, Ice-Cream Earth Bundles, Isis, and Osiris, (1997), connote a message that is both environmental and spiritual by incorporating text and using titles drawing correlations between the sculptures. Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility and Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god whose annual death and resurrection personified the self-renewing vitality and fertility of nature, represent death and spiritual rebirth while Ice-Cream Earth Bundles compares ice-cream with the decomposing condition of the planet. During the final days of the exhibition, only wire and remnants of the earth-bundles remained, incorporating an element of natural science into the work. In the drawing, Cradle Vine (2003), I created a kind-of gnomic language in which the leaves are a metaphor for children. I borrowed a few lines from a powerful poem, Eucharist, written by the poet, Louise Gluck. It deals with metaphysical questions. Questioning God’s intentions, the poet asks God how he/she can possibly be so heartless as to allow certain tragic events to occur.
Though inspired by nature, recent works have evolved reflecting the surroundings of the new location of my studio. Antler/Journey (2006), is both abstract and totemic - the two juxtaposed with a fossil-like horizon in-between. Remnants of wildlife from the area have migrated into the work bringing with them the possibilities of exploring new ideas, incorporating the science of observation and discovering new methods to add to the equation of art and life - while continuing along the path of this spiritual journey.