Artist Statement

In the series A Drop in the Ocean, I explore my experiences of caregiving and grief through large abstract paintings of oceanic fields and charged atmospheric landscapes. The series began while I was caring for my late husband, a brilliant and funny comparative literature academic who died of bladder cancer in 2025.

On raw canvas, I lay down intuitive, gestural acrylic marks and fields, creating compositions that form and dissolve. His final illegible scribbles became my visual source material, along with artifacts from his treatment: the scan results I reviewed while waiting for him in Central Park, the pink end-of-life form given to us in the hospital, and the medication diary I kept for him. In one small painting, I incorporate the medication itself.

Hours before he died, we watched The White Lotus. In the show, death is described as a drop of water rejoining the whole. On deep blue oceanic fields and atmospheric landscapes, I layer oil paint, wax pastel, and pigment stick. Chalkboard-like marks and erasures evoke his life as an academic. As I rework the surface, marks and gestures overlap and reappear, fading in and out of memory, becoming and rejoining.