This summer I was lucky enough to attend my first artist residency. High on a hill above the ancient Valle Camonica in the town of Cividate Camuno in Lombardy, surrounded by the majestic embrace of the Italian Alps, stands RUC. This mystical place is an ancestral home where artists from all over the world come to work in and be inspired by nature and history.
Miami Art Week is one of the most attended art events in the world and this year I am headed there to show my work for the very first time! I'm proud to share that my work has been selected by PULSE Art Fair Director, Cristina Salmastrelli as part of The Next Generation exhibit - an initiative designed to showcase the artwork of emerging artists during Miami Art Week.
This month I'm all about that dark olive/hunter green with a touch of brassy peach and of course, lots of depth and texture. Lately I'm using a lot of these tones in my original paintings and in my wardrobe.
Going through a website revamp and redesign is A LOT of work. My previous website launched almost 7 years ago but internet years are like dog years and I was long overdue for a change. Here are four very important lessons I learned when I rebranded and redesigned my website.
If there is one routine and creative process that shapes my entire studio practice it is my discipline with my visual journal. I keep a notebook journal where I write down my thoughts almost daily and I have a visual mood board where I hang photos, magazine cutouts and basically anything else that I find that is currently inspiring me. But the most important aspect of my studio practice is the work that I do in notebooks each and every day.
Earlier this year I started experimenting with impasto - the process of laying on paint thickly so that it stands out from a surface. I started doing some small color studies, pouring paint straight from the tube, making color patterns and mixing super thick and heavy amounts of paint. That’s how my mini paintings were born.
The Travelers is an ongoing series of vibrantly colorful paintings created using multiple layers of oil paint and inspired by my archive of photographs. In The Travelers I’m working to create art that evokes the passage of time as it is - fluid and transitory. By looking back at my archive of photography work, I can look to the future and imagine where it might go.
Last summer, while on vacation with my family in Greece, I took a photo that has become the starting point for an entire new series of paintings, as well as the perfect self-portrait that I could find in nature. There is a story underneath the surface of every person. Outside you see one thing but inside...inside there could be something completely unexpected, charged, surprising, even. People are complicated. We are layered and nuanced.
