Portraits, self and selfless, present questions that may both reveal and conceal. They may be literal in their interpretations or ambiguous in nature. They may capture a likeness or merely approximate it in abstraction. Sometimes they bare little or no recognizable relationship to the subject and yet are imbued with an innate spirit. Some portraits are complex in their detail while others can capture the essence of a subject with a few strokes of a pen.
Almost all of my portraits, whether on canvas or paper, are imaginary and evolve gradually in a nonlinear process. I intentionally cut the work into incongruous parts and then reassemble unrelated bits and pieces into entirely new assemblages. Sometimes the results are representational. Other times they are more abstract.
Like the portraits, we as a people are the sum of many disparate parts, amalgams of those who preceded us. We are the results of unintentional confluences and unexpected social interactions. As an immigrant society we are a potpourri: a multi-ethnic, mutli-racial society whose strength is built on its dynamism and diversity. It is social cubism. There are so many different ways to see and evaluate how we perceive, identify, and define ourselves.
These are issues that color my point of view and my work:
How to take so many disconnected pieces and fit them together to create entirely
new identities.’
How to take so many different and sometimes incompatible parts and make them
whole.
And finally, how to make order from chaos and create something entirely new.
