I started painting at the Art Students League of Denver when I was six years old. As soon as I entered the creaking wooden doors and saw the paint splatters on the floor, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I was fortunate to have a mom who loved art and took me to museums every chance we had. I distinctly remember discovering Manet, Velazquez, and Sorolla and feeling overwhelmed by painterly realism. My interest surged when a professor showed me Jenny Saville’s work and I realized how many, if not all, of the images I loved had been created by men and from a male perspective. Recently, my primary practice (along with small, observational studies) has been creating large-scale oil paintings using unconventional tools (paint rollers, sandpaper, and sponges) to create bold, textured images contemporizing timeless themes- memento mori, the female body, and art historical motifs.

I finished my MFA when I was twenty-one. Subsequently, I decided to return to school and study Art History, where I focused on the Early Modern. Through my studies, I learned that art is situated halfway between scientific thought and magical thought. I see the role of the artist as part sorcerer and part mirror. This led me to think about the role of the mirror in traditional painting practices and the use of a tinted mirror in Renaissance studios. I began experimenting with a tinted mirror in my own work.

The effect of the mirror is to condense the light in the image, unifying the parts and the whole, a goal of “the beautiful” dating back to Cicero. The black mirror has a long history of use as a tool for artists, esthetes and occultists. The black mirror also carries the implications of a critique and a negation, and an alternate reality. In ancient Greece, it was the only mirror available and was believed to reflect “the shade” or the eternal self. In nineteenth-century Paris, it was common to carry these mirrors on short walks to admire the way they altered the landscape. 1 The painting, like the mirror, has the effect of drawing the viewer to something both sinister and majestic. I also insert myself into the paintings, so they are fragmented self-portraits

In addition to the mirror paintings, I also love painting portraits. There is an element of surprise to painting portraits that makes it a unique experience. I know the painting works when it feels like the person is there, and they reveal unknown aspects of their personality. In that way, they are doing research into the person, and something becomes clear or emerges that I wasn’t expecting. I had a teacher who said, “You have to paint the thing you cannot say” and this poetic, mysterious approach to painting, for me, is apt for the materiality of the technique used. As a child, I was moved by the simplicity, ineffability and inevitability I felt upon seeing certain works of art. This feeling is what I hope to give my viewers.