Artist Statement
    

In Los Angeles I worked in Film Production beginning at the Walt Disney Studios and then moving onto the film crews in the Art Department that created the sets.

Returning to New York to study art at SUNY/Purchase College School of Art and Design, mentored by Philip Listengart, I started a new variation on a the theme of creative, theatrical, and cinematic thought processes, as all my work is influenced by my acting and production history and is immersed in the complexity and contradictions that have defined my life and my work in theatre, film and in art.

 

The animal series is the first in a continuous dialogue of work that is about the nature of humanity and Jungian archetypes. These qualities are shared by animal and man; these dichotomies are inherent in the human form, as well as the animal. We came from the animal form. The half-animal/half human series is created with reverence to the great tradition in sculpture, as in the sphinx, and of the multiple characters and the cultural dualities in pieces throughout art history.

 

My current series of work is about the idea of perfection, they are neo-classical in form, and they explore how our celebrity-saturated culture pervades our world and our self-image.  The individual personalities or identities I am choosing are noteworthy not only for who they are, but for what they represent, whether he or she is from the world of film, music, politics, or other paparazzi feeding machines. We are expected to aspire to the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection used by Hollywood and the global media and all of its appendages.  They influence, immensely, even completely, how men and women perceive each other, and in turn, how men compete with each other, as women do, and how women try endlessly to be flawless, so as not to be judged and cast aside.  The constant barrage of press and publicity has forever changed the lives we lead therefore the images used to promote the celebrities, or identities, we are expected to aspire to be are virtually unattainable.  I chose Angelina Jolie as the first in this group of work because of her beauty, her talent, the level of media frenzy that she is continuously barraged with as well as the duality in her private life of the importance to her of her life as a love, a mother, and her mission with the United Nations.  She gives, without question, one third of her salary, to those in need.