Artist Statement

At the Edge of the Sacred and the Sensual

My work lives in the space where the sacred and the sensual meet. I keep returning to the human body, especially the female body, as a place where memory, desire and dignity come together. A small shift of a hand, the way light touches skin, a gaze that stays one second too long. Those are the moments that interest me.

I paint slowly. My technique is rooted in the legacy of the Van Eyck brothers. I prepare wooden panels with West Flemish linen and twelve layers of handmade gesso, then build the image in egg tempera and oil. Pigments are ground by hand and laid down in thin, translucent layers until the skin starts to feel almost alive. My background as a chemist helps me to understand what happens inside the paint film, so the work is not only luminous now but will also endure over time.

My focus on women has to do with how I experience the sacred feminine. I do not see the female body as an object but as a living icon. Vulnerable, yes, but also powerful, intuitive and deeply connected. I try to paint women who inhabit their own sensuality and quiet strength, without apology and without the need to perform. I am not interested in perfection. I am interested in presence.

Alongside painting I work with cyanotype, palladiotype and hand painted pigment prints. These slower photographic processes allow me to treat light almost like a physical material. Each medium has its own rhythm and its own way of holding an image, and that keeps the work honest.

In the end I hope my paintings and photographs slow the viewer down, even for a moment. That they feel less like images to consume and more like encounters. A place where silence has weight and where beauty can become a kind of truth.