PAINTING

“When I begin, there is a frame: a space — paper or canvas — and time. I don’t know yet what will appear.”

A series often begins with many surfaces at once — sometimes twenty or thirty. She builds the first layers across all of them, moving from one to another.

At some point, she knows that part is finished.

She lays them out together and spends time looking at them. Gradually, something that wasn’t there before — or perhaps wasn’t visible — begins to appear. One surface begins to hold her attention. She starts there.

Layers of pigments, inks, acrylics and textures accumulate. Forms emerge, disappear beneath the surface, return. Several directions become possible, and she has to choose which one to follow.

A form that seemed important may vanish completely, while something barely perceptible at first becomes central.
What remains visible is only part of the painting.
One painting begins to respond to another. Connections arise and, gradually, a series reveals itself.

In 2017, she travelled to Brazil to volunteer at a large gathering bringing together Indigenous leaders and representatives from five continents. For several days, they lived alongside one another, sharing meals, stories and long conversations.

She would wake early and make her way to a table beneath a large mango tree. A few other early risers would already be there. Morning after morning, as the day began around them, she drew as they talked about their dreams from the night before.

Among them was a Mamo from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. In one conversation, he spoke about dreaming and waking life in a way she had never considered before.

THE DREAMING

The idea of making a documentary about dreams around the world had been with her for years. She would put it aside. Life would move on. Somehow, it always came back.

One day, she asked herself:
“If I had six months to live, what would I regret not doing?”
This time, she didn’t put it aside.

THE DREAMING is now being developed as a seven-part documentary series.