white on white: the bondage series

Up until this point, the majority of my endeavors focused on the female nude as a metaphor for emotional states using its distortion, facial expression and color to achieve my goal. I worked primarily in pastels. Currently, I have conceptualized a body of work strongly influenced by architecture, transcending the human form, geometric in nature and moving towards the abstract. There is a purity from unrelenting pain held in the grip of these works, like bones bleached white in the sun. Canvas contorted into bas-relief with its stark white gesso finish creates a Zen quality.

The predominant bondage theme was inspired when I fell in love with a man who expressed his pain through his sexuality. I tried to find a meeting of the minds and found I could relate emotionally but not on a physical plane. Family, love, death and addiction shape my ambivalent relation to pain.

Beyond Submission predicted my near fatal suicide attempt, seven years ago. From Me To You, Kindred Spirits, Ties that Bind and the Untitled piece are terms of endearment as well as bondage. Two triptychs, white and sculpted, represent the division of head, heart and body. My Letter Scarlet, an “X” rather than the red “A” of Hester Prynne, expresses lost loves as does Tommy’s Valentine with its sutured heart.


	Under the Scorpio moon, I fell in love. But God had other plans for me, So I set my kindred spirit free.