Collecting things is natural for me. I do it to have souvenirs or just to admire them around or for use in the future, most as gifts and some as subject for my art. I use to collect toys and small or manageable to store objects, but as I progress and have seen other fascinating materials which are impossible for me to acquire and keep. I apply this energy of wanting to collect by using their images and ideas as elements in my paintings.
I have been working on the subject of family for a period and have connected it with the concept of constant nest building, as I reflect on living abroad in different locations for years already. In painting my process brings me to an imagery of objects that are piled and connected to each other using patterns and aggressive decoration.
As I move to drawing, the medium has brought me to a different perspective in arranging and composition, perhaps inspired by the potential of materials that are thin, and semitransparent. I recall the tale of “The Princess and the Pea” in relation to my process of layering and imbedding images of objects in between. In the story the pea is observed as a representation of an idea beyond what it is physicaly and so I take this concept as a parallel to what I do in my recent works.
In a formal perspective, the ideas of drawing are extended in many aspects in my current pieces. I use semi transparent materials to engage layering and draw those images that are underneath to surface. Here, stains are imaged like erasures that are exploded traces of negotiations during the process. On top of it all, I surgically cut intricate details to elevate pen point rendering to its sharper edge.
