DANCE
Nearly 35 years of dancing and creating dance art installations yielded many dance-themed paintings. When immersed in Improvisation sessions, I connect with collaborators-dancers, and when taking a rest, I observe the joyful experience and make sketches of fellow dancers. This inside-out and outside-in approach captures the dynamic of intensity and relaxation in dancing bodies. The bodies are depicted using unstable, abstract forms and dynamic, expressive colors, thereby instilling a feeling of movement or movement potential, as the bodies playfully appear and disappear on the canvas. I am also drawn to the social and collaborative aspect of dance. As a painter, I spend a great deal of time alone, and this energy of collaboration and socializing gives me a sense of connection to the universe and something larger than myself. Because the collective group energy draws me to this subject, I do not paint individual faces or details on the dancers. The abstract energy and combination of colors produce the emotional meaning of the work.
Dancers
This inside-out and outside-in approach captures the dynamic of intensity and relaxation in dancing bodies.
Ballet Dancers
I am perpetually fascinated by movement—the perambulatory dancing bodies—evoking this movement repeatedly emerge in my work.
Ballerinas
Statement:
In the Ballerina series, I am exploring the relationship between dance as a spiritual practice and dance as a sexually charged act. I am juxtaposing the ethereal with the ephemeral, in other words, I strive to show the Ballet dancer as half-God half-animal. I want the viewer to see how while the dancer appears to have a transcendent experience, the dancer is also concealing sexual desire.
Round Dance
“Round Dance, a figurative work, features dancers whose faces are detailed while their bodies, abstractly painted in golden tones, nearly merge with the background. The picture suggests the transitory yet vital and substantial nature of our existence. Orange poppies enhance the sunny tone.”
—Anita Katz (SF Examiner, 2015)