Beautiful Witches

Two girls standing in a forest holding hands: who are they? I start the painting without

knowing.

I take a photograph of my daughter Audra and her friend Phoebe while on a hike.

In the studio, I build the mannequin set around the photograph. Creating the set, with lights, fabric, flowers and other objects from home and studio, plays a part in the development of the narrative. But the main director of the painting’s form and function is the painting process itself.

By training and persuasion, I am essentially an observational painter. The practice of capturing the three-dimensional world and translating it onto a two-dimensional canvas, with strokes of paint that become pieces of light and color, representing the perceived world in a way that is convincing to the viewer and sparks a sense of recognition, has always felt meaningful. Ironically, the representational painter is ultimately concerned with illusion and artifice.

This process, juxtaposed with the images that emerge out of both compositional and narrative ideas, tells me the story of the painting. Painting is also an act of “listening”, or paying attention. If I am open and alert, the painting tells me where to go.

This painting undergoes many phases, and the girls assume different roles and characters. New objects and animals come in. Other elements get painted out. In the end, they are like two virgins with the unicorn, remote and unknowable. Or they are beautiful witches, taming lions and birds and offering themselves like ravens, and the forest is a stage.