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I have been making art for over 45 years. During this time I tried to balance the role of wife, mother and community involvement, with my creative work. There were moments of exhilaration when all these activities were well integrated and moments of frustration when I had to choose between my family and my work. All through these years my work has energized and sustained me, giving me an added reason for embracing life.
Because I have lived in a few different cultures, I am attuned to diversity of expression. Having experienced both Communist and Fascist regimes, I am aware of how precious freedom is. Thus I am suspicious of prescribed policies, be they in art or elsewhere. My natural instinct is to go against trends, which I tried to avoid in my artistic practices. I am still doing what is out of fashion by being a painter, loving the hands-on laying of paint, textures, lines, light, darkness, creating new worlds on blank canvas, inventing new images, conveying feelings and emotions and hoping to thus touch others by my vision. Since 2000 I have returned to the exploration of the human body. While content is important, form is essential. I feel that unless I have something to say, there is no reason for me to paint. On the other hand, even though the intellectual component is important, meaning, without form, is not enough to qualify as art. The balance between form and content challenges the senses as well as the mind. My current work explores the human body in motion. I photograph dancers in rehearsal and then use the photographs as starting point for the creation of mixed media paintings. In some works I explore the importance of "meaning" in life, as in the "In Search of Meaning" Suite. I am also working with photography and clear mylar. The latter has led to a few exhibitions of experimental works in which I collaborated with dancers. It is exciting and rewarding to push towards new boundaries and discover new ways of expression. Most of my work is based on personal experience, which is then distilled and transformed through the creative process. I like to probe into the unseen, the mythological and the mysterious. The past fascinates me, for it shapes the present and the future. |