—click on any image to enlarge—
Line is the operative formal element in the work pictured here, but there are many other lines in play. Pieces walk a line between drawings that might be tapestries or sculptures or paintings or quilts. Lines delineate, but as often they act contrarily, blurring distinctions—is a red line a vein or a tendril, is a purple one a cell, an insect wing or a bit of lichen?
More fundamentally though, there is a fine fragile line between existence and its opposite, a line we all walk and which the small and large environments that contain us walk as well. Environmental and personal vulnerability has been a longstanding focus in my work. Waterways, in particular, with their almost human balance of fragility and strength, their perseverance through adversity—much of it inflicted by us—trace lines of stress and hope through our landscapes—as well as a strong line through the body of my work.
There is also the fine fragile line between the internal and the external. Handmade paper—translucent, delicate, and yet unexpectedly tough and durable—exposes the internal and yet protects it. It is skin and structure, portal and shield. For decades, this material has played a central and natural role in work exploring dualities of vulnerability and strength.
Finally, the line between existence and its opposite has been sharpened for all of us in recent years with the climate crisis and, more recently, the Covid pandemic. At the same time, the lines between our individual fragilities and those of the collective and the planet have been blurred. Individually, we have often been isolated—themes of escape and flight, literal and imagined, figure heavily in work I’ve produced in the pandemic period—but our fragile bodies and our fragile environment are inextricably linked. More than ever, we walk the line together.