Intrigued by man-made facsimiles of natural environments such as the compressed interiors of botanical gardens, I strive to capture the interplay between reality and artificiality. Colorfully gestural acrylic paintings appear to be drawn from the exotic locales of the American Southwest or the Caribbean. They are in fact compositions from manmade urban greenhouses, which are revealed through the precise placement of sculptural succulents or panes of reflective glass. The theme of nature’s reconquest can be seen in the scale and weighty personification of plant life, as well as the decaying detritus of human industry.

Following a deep tradition of women and botanical paintings, many of my paintings reference the historical gender bias of limiting women to certain acceptable subjects, just as women today are rarely allowed to be fully who they are. They turn to subterfuge to illustrate their meaning. One would assume that these abstracted botanical paintings represent an idealized beauty, but no less important are reminders of loss and wintering, the emptied seed pods and yellowing ferns. These paintings are meant to be beautiful, but look closer and another reality emerges. From the artist and critic Helen Hummel, “At first her work will appear chaotic and formless, but then it will burst into form and space in a most remarkable way.” My creative processes are a contemporary trompe l’oil, engaging the viewer to closely examine the depicted visual reality.