“***An open flower,***

beautiful and radiant in the sun, reminds us that we to can allow ourselves to blossom and shine.
These abstract floral “petalescent” burst of light and color are my expression of what it feels like to be in the presence of flowers.
They are a reminder to be soft and to spill over and that it is the most natural thing in the world to be totally beautiful and fully expressed.”

Growing up in the countryside of Northern California, some of my earliest memories are of painting sunflowers with my mom in the garden.

I remember countless afternoons, laying on my back in the tall grass, surrounded by flowers. Poppies, sweet peas, nasturtiums and forget-me-nots folded together, filling my periphery as I lay looking up at the vast blue sky.

In those moments, I felt totally at peace, surrounded by overflowing beauty that was spilling out everywhere all around me. Flowers were my home, their sweeping beauty dipping itself into my presence, surrounding me with a feeling of being totally overflowing with effortless radiance.

Influences:

Monet was my first favorite painter, for his use of color and the sense of floral radiance that permeated his work. I loved his paintings as an early child and came to love them again much later as an adult, in the years after I recovered my sense of childlike wonder.

My parents had a print of one of Monet's paintings next to our fireplace in the living room, and I would study it for hours, piecing apart in my mind all the brushstrokes it took to create such a work. By age 12, I had created my own first masterpiece, a ballerina, painted only in palette knife. And by the time I was in high school, I was winning awards for my talent.

Once, while visiting a Van Gogh exhibit at the De Young Museum, I remember specifically telling my mom I was never going to be one of those artists who painted flowers. But flowers called me, always whispering of that spilling-over, breathtaking kind of beauty. I always came back to them because they were the purest expression of freedom-to-be-exactly-who-you-are that I had ever encountered.

Education:

Years later, in the cold winters of British Columbia, I came to realize just how potent their magic was. I had moved to Canada for university, and having never lived in a freezing climate, I had not experienced what it was to go an entire season without green stems and color. On those icy grey days, I missed the feeling of fresh plants so much that I began wearing silk flowers in my hair, wanting to find some connection to the natural world that had always been right there for me. As I threw myself into my paintings during those bleak winters, I found myself bringing more and more flower forms in my creative expression.

After graduating from university and then studying under several professional painters, I developed my own unique expression of the floral form, something wholly new – contemporary enough to hold my attention and yet still containing the essence of an open bloom.

Why Abstract Florals?

These abstract floral “petalescent” burst of light and color are my expression of what it feels like to be in the presence of flowers.

All my paintings are expressions of this soft, vibrant way of existing. They are bursting with life and color and have a sense of spilling over, much like how I remember those flowers as a little girl, laying among the nasturtiums, sweet peas and forget-me-nots, as I stared up at the vast blue sky. They took me over, unraveling their beauty all around me, and I seek to capture this overwhelming magic in my work. My large paintings, especially, seek to capture that feeling of being surrounded by a canopy of larger-than-life sweeping petals, pulling you into their softness, and my smaller “starbursts” seek to capture a momentary glimpse into this magic.

They are a reminder to be soft and to spill over and that it is the most natural thing in the world to be totally beautiful and fully expressed.

My Studio:

Now, I create these paintings from my beautiful studio in Sonoma County, CA. I look out from my window over my terraced garden, watching all year as the flowers I grow and tend to unfurl and bloom. My paintings have been collected by celebrities and top wine families throughout Sonoma County and beyond and are housed in private collections all over the world. They are showcased on the walls of beautiful wineries and boutiques and can also be acquired directly through my studio.

Now I get to live surrounded by the essence of flowers all the time. I get to make other people's homes feel unforgettable, filled with the bursting blooms of my floral paintings. They call to us, reminding us that, we too, can allow ourselves to unfurl and shine.

About the Process

“My work is a place where I become enraptured by the moment. Painting is, for me, an incredibly intuitive process, driven by excitement and sensory awareness. I work from floral bouquets I gather in the garden and images of women caught in the moment. I begin with a variety of mixed media materials, including spray paint, pastels, acrylics and 24 karat gold leaf, with the final layers done in oils to create a juicy, rich finish. I paint with my whole body, moving paint across canvas, immersing myself in flicks and arching brushstrokes, feeling the gooey paint between my fingers. The more I give myself to the experience of painting, the more joy I find in the process.”