These paintings were created during a period of personal rupture following the unexpected end of a significant relationship. They are not illustrations of that experience but direct responses to it—formed through the body, through gesture, and through the act of painting itself.
Working in acrylic on paper, I painted quickly and intuitively, allowing images to emerge without predetermined structure. Figures appear and dissolve simultaneously; faces remain partially formed, bodies fragmented, exposed, or in transition. Paint is pushed, smeared, and scraped across the surface, carrying an immediacy that records emotional experience rather than narrative description. Red enters repeatedly—not as symbol, but as force—an eruption within the pictorial field.
The work developed during a semester of study with Leon Berkowitz through the Corcoran School's Open Program.
Berkowitz's belief in painting as a vehicle for felt experience rather than depiction affirmed the direction I was pursuing.
His observation that the paintings recalled the work of Goya, where he recognized their psychological intensity and their capacity to hold vulnerability, disturbance, and transformation within the human figure.
Several works from this series were exhibited in Figure As Image, Figure As Symbol at Touchstone Gallery and were discussed by Kim Grant in New Art Examiner (February 1988).
Looking back, these paintings mark a threshold within my practice. While the figure remains present, representation is no longer the central concern. Instead, color, gesture, and form become carriers of sensation, memory, and emotional energy.
The figure would eventually disappear from my work, but the underlying investigation—the transmission of experience through visual means—remains at the center of my practice today.
