The minute you draw a line around, in front or behind a figure, you visually frame it, containing it in a certain space. The figure in landscape, in a room, in a void; the figure trapped in its own space. Greek mythology and other tales have inspired this collection of paintings.
Pastels enable me to produce sweeps of dense blocks of solid colour in my paintings. Flat and graphic in character, this collection depicts mysterious, deserted landscapes. A horizon separates the top from the bottom, the earth from the sky. Lines of hand-drawn, barely readable script appear as evocations, prayer or song.
My experience in the clay medium inspired me to experiment with new painting techniques, mixing materials such as sand, clay and marble dust into the paint to create densely textured surfaces. Incorporated into some of the paintings are fragments of linen and paper that have been soaked with various pigments and buried in the earth to mature and be transformed. The written word, as an evocation, forms an essential part of my work.
In my early work, I used the pencil extensively to depict surrealistic and dream like spaces. I then experimented with pastels which led to a series exploring the alphabet. This collection is about the Aleph, the first letter of the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet. It is also the first letter of the name Adam, who is the first biblical Man. I view the Aleph as a symbol of beginnings. I chose the Hebrew Aleph for this series because of its very graphic and expressive design. It reminds me of a figure walking, running or dancing.
The Figure
The Figure
