UNSEEN ORDER

A solo show at Wall Box Gallery

2 Tower Place, South San Francisco

October 5 - December 1, 2024

In this exhibition of new work from the past year, much of it from printmaking residencies at Pilchuck Glass School and Kala Art Institute, I began with tree imagery, comparing the changing light of day with seasons of life, which turned into an exploration of invisible structures linking the trees with life itself. As the world’s events became bleaker, black made an unexpected appearance, slowly at first, then grew to fill the richly embossed surfaces of my prints in wide swaths. Spring brought banks of poppies shoving their way in along the edges of parking lots and roads, and their orange insistence was a reminder to me of a larger system. A chance glimpse of morning glories racing over chain link fences and rusting car skeletons gave me another gift of unexpected beauty and reaffirmed my awareness of an unseen order.

I am interested in how we sense and connect to that unseen order by suggesting a visible possibility. The tiny shapes combine to make a pattern but each one can shift the whole image. The repetition of shapes on the surface creates a rhythm that moves our eyes across the image, and the breaks in the pattern point to our imperfections. Through this process, I found that those imperfections became the most interesting aspect and actively followed the patterns as they began to morph and move, not held to the flatness of paper.

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Morning Glorified

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Morning Glorified

$1,500.00

acrylic & silkcreen on canvas, 24×30", 2024

The intense magenta & blue of morning glories almost disappears as the vines clamber and cover, but there is a hidden structure in both their color and rambling habit.

Flowers represent more than just extraordinary beauty, rather they symbolize an unseen order: a larger design that organizes life. Combining images with geometric patterns, I reveal, conceal and remake both towards an overall invisible structure.

I began this painting with an image transfer of a photograph of poppies, then added layers of screenprinted geometric patterns using a combination of printing ink and graphite powder. Finally, I filled in and outlined the shapes with acrylic paint, adding layers and colors until the original image was remade from a picture of flowers to the idea of spreading over haphazardly with an internal structure.

Currently on display at UC Law, 8th floor, San Francisco

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