Allegory and Grace
Dr. Seuss famously wrote: “How did it get so late so soon. It’s night before it’s afternoon. December before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
Looking at the concept of time through the lens of years, I am deeply conscious of both the passing and the preciousness of what was, what is, and what will come.
Allegory and Grace is a body of work which is a direct reflection of my own aging process. As a figurative painter in my seventies, I have for the past number of years focused on the aging body, attempting to break down the stereotypes surrounding the depictions of older figures. In a culture that glorifies youth and beauty, time-ravaged bodies are hidden, denied. Yet the process of aging, the process of change, and my internal insistent demand to be my most authentic self, stands at the core of my artistic practice. My paintings question the taboos surrounding the depiction of aging bodies challenging cultural stereotypes that equate beauty with youth and confront the dominant negative perception of aging – particularly in aging females – questioning gender and political values.
As an aging female artist, an expansion of this area of interest is a personal sense of identity as a sentient and sexual being, confronting my physical body and mortality, scrutinizing and exploring what effect this unflinching inward gaze has on my artistic practice.
My paintings are visual narratives born from memories obtained from a full measure of lived experiences – loves, losses, achievements, disappointments. My figures exist in both the past and present moment, isolated unto themselves and yet interconnected with the world around them. Their stories are told both through the physicality of their aging bodies and in the images of memory, places and times past that form the world in which they now exist.
It is my hope my work and insights can speak to others in a broader sense, helping to transcend and transform the wider dysfunctional cultural narrative and biases towards aging.