Messages, Manuscripts,Letters
This is a recent and ongoing series of mixed media works on paper. I collect handmade paper, including Japanese Shikishi board that is edged with gold, as well as Letraset: rub-on letters employed by graphic designers before the computer era. On these unique papers, I employ the press-on letters of the Letraset as a mark-making tool. I seek to create a symbolic language—hieroglyphic and intuitive.
This work started during the pandemic and has continued as a means to meditate and to process the past few years of my life—revealing various degrees of intimacy depending on the viewer. Further manipulating the works, I embellish the panel and paper with gold paint and ink, use palo santo incense to create marks with smoke, and also sew into the backgrounds with colored thread (often red). Thus, a number of the pieces become objects—almost artifacts—generating a visceral allure via their handmade qualities and sense of tactility.
Ultimately, I recognize the metamorphic potential within my recent body of work. Rooted in my own experiences, articulated through this lyrical, ambiguous language—they reflect the grief of the world. To me—they reveal a universal collective unconscious, influenced by stored memory, yet with the power to reshape histories and futures.
