Botanical Portraiture

Larger-than-life characterizations of plants and flowers are drawn as palimpsests over formerly-human portraiture in these charcoal works on paper. The collection asks us to interact with the plant world on a spiritual and relational level. Plants speak through an asemic tongue that we might learn to enjoy and respect. I walk through the garden, collecting the sounds, colors, scents. I enjoy the quick and clear symphony of voices and textures. Who am I listening to? Who is watching me? I approach. Ask. Give gratitude. Transport, and begin. I pick a previously-rendered charcoal portrait of a person, and smear; the image fades, and makes room for the plant to take the foreground. Eventually the plant-life emerges as a solo figure.  Both in living and dying form, the plant world reveals itself to me as inspirited and communicative. Inside of this relationship, I enact feminist forms of listening: intuitive, fluid and flexible, bold, unassuming, emotionally acute— enacting a rite of relationship. Centering the beings that feed and clothe us. Coming into balance with the world.