ARTWALZ

Artist Statement

California surf culture and martial arts are integral to my art practice. I am immersed in a sense of constant movement underscored by personal experiences of surfing and karate. A parade of land and sea experiences I interpret as if Baroque scenes of a magical underworld. A storytelling of theatrical scope that I acquired from my early years as a runaway in Hollywood, CA. The world took on the uncanny appearance of a continuous movie projection. A gigantic celestial unity of moving composition drawing together timeframes of the past and present into a mindscape fraught with danger and momentary interludes of sudden pleasure. Even now, I refer to an external vision of myself as if a grand camera is recording my body making art within the boundaries of my studio. This perspective performs as the catalyst to my thought process. I dive into the magical underworld I create of water and sand to express the personal strength of women emboldened to lead people into safety. In neoprene wetsuits their big athletic bodies cut across choppy waves to imaginatively greet the psychological fortitude and physical abilities of Judith cutting off the head of Holoferenes, an iconic Baroque painting of a rapist; "Judith Beheading Holoferenes", c 1620, by Artemisia Gentileschi. Centuries later, my painting practice negotiates a related connection by reassembling images of women historically captured in scenes of gendered social subjugation. My project is to create a contemporary narrative that intersects the canon of painting with a reformed state of equity and visual language of women as social leaders. 

​