I made my first 3-D collage 27 years ago, and since that time my work has grown
in size, complexity and meaning. The collages are made by attaching layer upon
layer of materials such as paint, paper, rag board, foil, glitter, sticks, wire,
mirrors, pencils, nails, glass, painted toothpicks, string, leather, lint, small
plastic toys and other found objects on heavy paper, much in the way a painter
builds layer upon layer of paint on canvas. Often these materials are used symbolically.
My aim is that the obsessive images that result from this method of working
convey an intensity which the viewer finds compelling. I am interested in the
spatial complexity and visual tensions that come from the collages being illusionistic,
while at the same time composed of three-dimensional objects
that often retain their own identity. Drawing my subject matter from history
and literature, I like the irony of using materials that are often trivial,
foolish, and temporal to express ideas of what is significant, timeless, and
transcendent.