In my three-dimensional paintings I explore pictorial space by extending architectural structures beyond the picture plane. The forms reach into the space of the viewer, inviting a more intimate engagement with the painting. I’m inspired by religious paintings of the Italian High Renaissance and Mannerist periods, in which the interaction of color and shifting light sources are as emotionally charged as the subject matter itself. I’m interested in what remains when overfamiliar devotional imagery – icons, shrines, crosses, mandalas – are emptied of their religious content and allowed to communicate through form and color alone. Borrowing inverse perspective and other compositional devices from Byzantine and Sienese icon painting, I aim to create an emotional response without the distraction of religious subject matter. My fascination with religious imagery is influenced by my evangelical upbringing, which, although I left the Christian faith decades ago, left me with a passion for its symbols and abstract language. My ongoing study of religions has exposed me to the iconography of many belief systems, all of which influence my work.

Text Drawings and Illuminated Manuscripts
I began working with sacred texts in 2007, cutting letters from one text to form the writings of another. This “cross-pollination” of holy books has a larger purpose, suggesting that all sacred writings point toward the same source, eliminating the need for exclusivity or intervention. The process of deconstructing sacred texts expresses a broad interpretation of scripture that is inclusive of all faiths. In the Illuminated Manuscripts series, I combine sacred texts with painting, sewing, and burning, rendering a contemporary interpretation of an ancient tradition. But instead of illuminating a long-established, patriarchal religion, I illuminate the state of awareness, the origin and destination of all religions.