Trespassing Between the Hours is a large series of small oil paintings, many of which are presented here. I am interested in creating psychological spaces of mystery and expansive symbolism. Central to my practice is an apprenticeship to signs; I try to decipher the meaning of the paintings, individually and in concert. What might the images mean and where do they lead? What are common themes?  I prefer to begin many pieces at once, hang them on the wall, and chip away from there. To discover relationships, I often rearrange the work into series. I also create multiple paintings of the same image to encourage deeper attention. The images originate from dreams, collages, and visions. I research the symbols to bring me further into the work, into the unconscious. 

Looking at the series including The Smoke of Sacrifice, Fire Theater, and Trespassing Between the Hours, we see a figure obscured by a hand, a stage of fire, and a boat floating in the sky, respectively. Fire Theater may play a central role because of its striking brightness. It represents an alchemical element, whereas the other pieces suggest tacit narration. Fire Theater represents inner fire and inspiration, or, conversely, destruction. When we draw back the curtain, or the veil, a blaze is revealed. It engulfs the field and foregrounds a smoky sky. The curtains are black in relief. The simple stage is empty. The fire is contained, it is performing, it is aware. A straight-forward image with an archetypal significance, Fire Theater brings a dynamism to its almost frozen companions. 

To me, The Smoke of Sacrifice could represent a stifled agency or potency. Its title comes from a line of Klopstock’s: “Whoever chooses blindly is struck in the eyes by the smoke of sacrifice.” The painting depicts an armless figure who is shadowed by a large, disembodied hand, which consequently renders the figure faceless. These ideas of barred agencies and shadowed identities are recurring themes in the larger body of work. I often see covered faces, fragmented figures, and frozen movement.

Trespassing Between the Hours, the frozen vessel below an upside-down sea, depicts both eternity and potential. A Karl Kraus quote comes to mind: “The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in an upside-down world order has stood every test.” The perspective of the boat shows that it is on a clear path. Another quotation comes to mind. This time, by Carl Jung: “This path to the primordial religious experience is the right one, but how many can recognize it? It is like a still small voice, and it sounds from afar. It is ambiguous, questionable, dark, presaging danger and hazardous adventure, a razor-edged path, to be trodden for God’s sake only, without assurance and without sanction.”