PassagesWater is an important element in my life and work. Water, like glass, absorbs and reacts with all colors placed upon it. On calm days, reflections will lie on top of the water’s surface, creating a double image. Water also allows light to pass through the surface, channeling to its depths.
In the controlled environment of my studio, I portray glass vases on mirrors to ignite the feeling I have while being on the water. In some paintings, I compose the mirror to resemble a flat picture plane, like the surface of the water. In other compositions, I present a mirror as a window or portal, a passage into illusory space. As water calms me, mirrors help me frame, focus and concentrate more inwardly while painting.
As I arrange objects on or in front of mirrored surfaces, I see passages between the shapes. A vase and its reflection are two shapes that begin to repeat. Multiple vases and their reflections create a rhythmic repetition, a flow, a pattern. Envision sail boats on a starting line, each boat with its own reflection in the water adjoined with a moving line of boats overlapping and crossing reflections. In my studio, sailing vessels on water become colored glass vases on a mirror with light passing through one colored shape to create new shapes and colors. The result is a painting of transmitted light and reflected color. As water absorbs light, each colored glass vase captures and reflects rays of light from all the vases surrounding it.
I record and respond to this light. I paint trans lumens: the hum, the resonance, the vibrant energy that I observe in the refraction of intense light streaming through glass objects and descending past the surface of the mirror into the depths on which the vases float.
