Artist’s Statement

I paint in oil on tablecloths, bedspreads, and garments—textiles that already carry a history before I ever touch them. My process is closer to archaeology than composition: before I start painting, I search out the patterns someone once wove, embroidered, or sewed into the cloth, and I let those patterns guide the work.

Into these found landscapes I place a human figure or portrait, set against a vast manmade or natural expanse. I think of the result as a kind of Reductive Surrealism—a few familiar signs allowed to collide.

A tablecloth or a bedspread has always been a receptacle for tears, shouts, blessings, and curses. My work begins by trying to listen to what's already there.

The "Iconoportrait" series I am currently working on is inspired by my Ingrian-Finnish lineage. “Ovum” (#1) is a painting of a young woman who is depicted holding an egg, a symbol of fertility and of mourning, of hope and of her choice. "Silent" (#2) is a portrait of my grandmother, who perished in a Stalinist-Soviet prison, leaving only the hope that her small children will survive.

With these works I refer to Walter Benjamin's Theses “On the Concepts of History," where his analysis suggests that redemption can only be achieved by speaking the unspoken for those who suffered and who may be suffering still.