The  Refinery

Artist Statement

A refinery is an establishment that takes a raw or crude material and purifies it by removing unwanted substances. The end result is a product of value — usable and desirable.

All of the women I’ve encountered in my life, including myself, are on a constant journey to refine themselves; on a never ending mission of self-improvement.  A mission at times that leads us to genuine betterment and other times to utter paralysis of dissatisfaction and disappointment.  This collection with the woman as the subject challenges what it means to be refined in terms of beauty.  This body of work means to combat the current unattainable standard of beauty that plagues women on a daily basis, both in the media and in our thoughts. Loose watercolor washes offer the ideal medium to embrace a new concept of beauty. Colors run and bleed into each other and features become distorted and ambiguous —imperfections are celebrated.  A high gloss resin coating then cements this new notion of what it is to be beautiful and refined, creating a reflective surface to include the viewer’s image.