My paintings are unexpected Mandala images. Originally born of a need to bridge an emotional gap after dealing with death/loss, I found the constraint of the images, (the square composition with a central focus), the only way to create images that made sense. Mandalas have spiritual and ritual significance, and are used for meditation practices. For me, my paintings are the unearthing, examining, and restructuring: the evolution of self. My paintings are a connection to the collective unconsciousness. I came to this symbol unwittingly and out of necessity; it answers the need for me to create structure, a way to cope, heal, and find balance.

Deeply attracted to and inspired my Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, I was priveliged to study and employ these ancient and nearly lost artform. In my studies of Illuminated Manuscripts, I discovered that the images drawn and painted in the borders of the pages had both decorative and symbolic meaning. The quiet power of the seemingly purely ornamental, spoke to me as a way to communicate what is most vulnerable without feeling revealed. The use of symbols in my paintings is a way to speak with a hidden language of the things that compel, wound, and heal me. The raw emotions of love, grief, anguish, rage, and joy are explored in a way that is both excruciatingly personal, and anonymously accessible to all. They speak of the human condition.

My paintings are of a small scale. They are private images that invite the viewer to have an intimate experience with them. The sense of lushness, and preciousness, with the use of egg tempera, gold, silver, palladium (in leaf and powdered form), on real goatskin parchment create images as ‘precious’ objects, without ever needing to engage on a deeper level. This in turn serves as a metaphor for how I/we move through the world with our public and private persona. It is my way to discuss the private in a public way.