Artist Statement

Born in New York City, I now live and work in Boston, MA. I earned a B.A. from Brandeis University, an M.S. from Columbia University, and am a graduate of the four- year Diploma Program in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

I was a practicing psychotherapist for many years but have been working fulltime as an artist since 1997. My paintings have always had a psychological focus and are metaphorical. Over the past ten years, my work has dealt with the need for containment - both psychological and physical. Various images, all containers, formed my previous vocabulary. Through these paintings, I expressed both a desire for the safety of enclosure and a terror of possible entrapment.

This new body of work reflects my lifelong interest in the subject of the self and the process of its development over the span of a lifetime. The works of Carl Jung and his writings on the process of individuation have served as a guide.

I have always used the abstract image of the sphere as a metaphor for the self. In these new paintings, I explore the various components of the self – the persona, the ego, the shadow, the anima/animus as they variably emerge and recede over a lifetime. Some aspects of the self may remain hidden until they unexpectedly appear in the second half of life.

Clearly the self continues to develop over a lifetime. My work addresses a narrative of growth that begins with the original yearning for containment, through the terror of entrapment and need for separation, and eventually onto the sense of being whole that is the result of the individuation process.