Watercolors

These watercolors from 2008 continue a theme established in an earlier 2002 series. In each case, I have pushed water and color against the linear confines of a penciled 18- by 12-inch square grid. I am interested in both the grid’s expressive potential and its oppressive nature. My ideas for these watercolors grew from a long afternoon’s study of the collection of small works by Paul Klee in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and from seeing the more postmodern grid-bound drawings of Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, and Lee Bontecou.

Each of the 2002 and 2008 watercolors represents a fine balance between order and disorder, fluidity and fixed geometry. They are not overtly feminist images, however, they can be read as a visual metaphor for creative expression within, or even in spite of, the confines of established power. When I take on each of these works, I attempt to navigate in a very real sense beyond the grid’s rule-bound structure with the interplay of brilliant color, transparency, and negative space.