In the spring of 1995 I took a trip to Marfa, Texas with my husband and father-in-law. We hiked around Big Bend National Park and visited Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation. While both interested me, swimming alone in the hotel pool at night would influence my work for years to come. That quiet pool of light in the desert has become the subject of numerous poems, stories, and paintings.
The paintings are not portraits, but studies in which solitude is solace. Water and light become buffers, allowing the viewer to stand outside the subject, to watch from the protected darkness, the way we view film. We become voyeurs to these moments, when the subject is surrounded by water, encased in it, needing air and light. Until we have taken that first gulp of air upon surfacing the outside world does not exist.
The figures shown are all family and friends, the pools are from locations in Massachusetts, Florida, New York, Arizona and Greece. One of the paintings shows chairs thrown into a pool in preparation for hurricane Bonnie in Homestead, Florida. Another shows reflections in a pool of lily pads. I paint in Oil, Acrylic, and Watercolor, as each medium inspires me to handle an image in a different way.