Artist Statement
Growing up as a Romanian Orthodox minister’s daughter provided me with the opportunity to experience daily life as a fascinating paradox, observing things in their ecclesiastical functions as well as prosaic roles. I witnessed the juxtaposition of dual roles for the communion cup – from sacred vessel in the highest religious reverence to common household container for leftover candy. In my work, I am interested in exploring the contrast between deep reverence and flippant disposal of the same object by meticulously painting normally mundane objects and everyday detritus. The objects I choose to paint are fragments of my direct surroundings and their connotation is inspired by autobiographical nuances.

My training as a Byzantium icon painter shaped the way I explore my subject matter and interact with my still lives, by instilling the element of time and patience into my painting process. Sifting these objects through my perception and the slow process of painting allows me to exploit and retain their qualities on the canvas. The paintings encapsulate a longer stretch of time, and I seek to reveal this temporal containment by employing realism as a means of documentation. The gestures which once took place – the hanging of the bags, the shaving of the wood, the flipping of the page, the explosion of a tire, are sculptural markers of a recent past. Working from these resulting still lifes is a continuing attempt at conjuring a more tactile notion of time.



By keeping my materials as pure as possible, oil paint on canvas, I challenge myself to ceaselessly manipulate and transcend paint into a variety of surfaces. This choice reflects my idea that the art making process is a spiritual endeavor – a reevaluation of everything, brushstroke by brushstroke. Upon completion, the still lives are disposed of. The objects in my paintings remain in a state of reverence while the actual things return to the mundane or disappear as trash. Paradoxes finely balanced in the act of painting, my work conjures both a past and a present, a concretely rendered thing and an indefinable object, solid yet empty.