Ever since I was able to hold a pencil I have been drawing. Not too long ago I went through my childhood artworks (which my mother kept all these years!) and realized that most of my drawings were of angels, churches and scenes of the bible. Before I was ten, I had already created several versions of Jesus on the cross! Years of Sunday mornings spent in this beautiful German gothic cathedral that has the stations of the cross painted on their walls may have had something to do with it.

Drawing remains a central component of my abstract and semi-abstract work. A thick lead of graphite or stick dipped in ink makes the marks to create faces, figures or landscapes. These become the foundation of my pieces. Colour recently seems to play a lesser role and the natural pigments, which I use more and more now, work well with cold wax and oil, especially on my new favourite substrate, Mylar, which is heaven to draw on.

Inspiration comes from stories in Scripture as well as German folk tales,  all describing the human condition as part of a greater story which leads me back again and again to the themes of identity and belonging. Fitting for an immigrant, I think.