Memory Moves

Over the past fifteen years, I have worked in oil, acrylics, watercolors and encaustic, approaching different aspects of the concept of memory. My non-encaustic pieces are both abstract and figurative, while the encaustic paintings are more abstract. In my pieces I abstract the usual conventions of image to reflect on the connections between meanings and images. I create a sense of ambiguity between the object and its intelligibility to convey my concern with the ways in which we formulate the meanings and the values that structure our visual perception. Therefore, drawing upon my training as a psychologist and academic, I incorporate into my work a variety of theoretical ideas, thus infusing it with another range of textures, beyond the pictorial. Freudian concepts such as the unconscious, repression, and latent/manifest content are particularly important to my paintings. Such a range serves to broaden my work, giving it a more fluid, open-ended character that invites the viewer to appreciate it in his/her unique way.

As a psychologist I consider the expression of texture as a tool to reach profound levels of the psyche. As an artist, I am deeply interested in continuous feedback between matter and sensation, exploring the boundaries of two and three dimensions. Images, for me, are a psychological experience of pleasure, culturally determined and socially legitimated. Ultimately, my overall intention is to give the viewer an opportunity to experience the presence of the painting as a critical response to the ongoing dematerialization of the reality of our contemporary world.

The Peacock Series

The connections between psychology and art have been the constant subject of my paintings. I became fascinated with this theme during my practice as a clinical psychologist, an experience that helped me to infuse my art with principles based on different lines of thought in psychology. Since I moved to Minnesota, though, instead of continuing my clinical practice, I have centered my focus exclusively on painting, making it my way of stimulating people’s psychological dynamics.
In this series, I talk about the Jungian concept of "archetype". Archetypes are universally understood models, which are common to our culture and affect our psychological development as well as our behavior, channeling experiences and emotions. I use those models to discuss images heavily charged with social and individual meanings. Here I am exploring the symbol of peacocks as universal metaphor for power, beauty, resurrection, and above all, seduction.
The intention of my work is to make people creatively question what they are seeing, and to make contact with their innermost being. For me, art is a way of awakening perception by addressing the senses directly, which allows better conditions to facilitate the communication between the person and his or her deeper self.