1996 was a seminal year that resulted in extreme changes in my work.
I started using paper as my primary medium.
In the beginning I was working with ink drawings that were slightly folded, rolled or shaped. The first series were simple pleated sheets or rolled cylinders of paper with black ink drawings on the surface suspended by wires.
"Houses", a series of very minimal images on paper were drawn, cut and shaped. These pieces were both small and spare, a reference to the feeling of being edged out, or at the edges of society. This was also the first time I used newspaper as a medium. Straight pins also appear for the first time.
The "Black X Series" was the next step in manipulating paper. These pieces were more heavily worked and thicker layers and deeper dimension was added. They were darker and closed in with a hard surface. The images were minimal, X's and O's were used as symbols.
"Sightings" is a series of paintings, some on boards, others on canvas, that continued using simple symbols, circles, squares, and rectangles. Many of these had to do with pinpointing or marking spaces, influenced by marking maps, rifle sightings and the flickering shapes at the beginning of old reel movies. Some of these pieces were combined in an installation piece.
The "Women Warrior" series started as a reaction to the heart breaking story and images of women brutally raped as a strategy of war in Darfur. After I did a few small drawings using altered images from the newspaper of some of the women affected by this brutality I wanted protectors for these women. The "Woman Warriors" were the result. They were stiff, harsh, strong abstract, 3-D, painted paper pieces.
The "Mythological Creatures" series grew out of the research I did for the "Woman Warriors". They were similar in concept to the "Women " but started with silvery metallic surfaces. Later this led to an in depth study of animals in myth and folklore and larger scale pieces.
"The Papers" series I am working on now uses newspaper as a base material both physically, all pieces are drawn and painted on newspaper, and use images and text found on the surface of the newspaper.