Artist Statement

My father worked for different Texas oil companies in the 1970’s and 80’s and because of the nature of the work, every couple of years my family was uprooted, moved across county lines, and resettled. Creating stories for myself and role playing became my way of processing the changes I experienced. The work I’ve done so far depicts the emotional landscape of my childhood as I remember it—a blur of color and movement flashing by the static iconography of the past: those tiny company houses where the roughnecks lived, old-style telephone poles and pumpjacks. And enveloping that landscape, out of balance in scale, space, and perspective, are these figures that seem to dominate and subdue, not with violence, but with curiosity and playful interaction. Interrupting the flow of abstract shapes with simple flat black and white houses and telephone poles breaks the viewing pace, as if a light bulb pop across the setting of the implied narrative —pulling the viewer into a space undefined where they can figure out the story or pretend a new one.