Artist Statement:

My work incorporates textile patterns and photographs of figures in patterned clothing. The painted and collaged patterns act as a form of camouflage to hide and protect the body. These detailed patterned spaces are often psychologically charged, dealing with issues of control, power, entrapment and escape.

Turkish Delight is a series of mixed media works that addresses the status of women.  I am inspired by dress from Ancient Turkey, specifically the ornate robes or kaftans that are found in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.  Traditionally, only Ottoman Sultans wore Imperial Kaftans, but I am placing women in these elaborate robes to comment on what I see as the diminished role of women in contemporary society.  The women in Turkish Delight are camouflaged within the painted textile patterns so that they become invisible or merged with their surroundings.  Turkish Delight implies that women are objectified as “eye-candy” – an experience that women confront everyday in almost all cultures.

In a more humorous series of work titled Flimflams, I use an eclectic range of rubber-stamp images that interact with the painted patterns. A combination of rubber-stamp images and drawings are used to emphasize the ideas of the Turkish Delight paintings. These pieces move further into the realm of fantasy and absurdity than with other works. The stamps are carefully selected to create a series of paintings that are unrestrained by pictorial reality, but structured around the patterns, forming ambiguous narratives and suggesting a new set of cultural associations for the chosen patterns. 

The Turkish Delight Flimflams exhibit Ottoman Sultans dressed in female clothing, as their kaftans are now being worn by women and are unavailable to them.  They are locked into place by ornate Turkish patterns and are confronted by the absurdity of their dress.