“In Mesoamerica, the area of land that comprises Southern Mexico and most of Central America, the flower was seen not as a decorative device, as commonly seen in Western cultures, but as an image that embraces the full spectrum of existence, of life and the afterlife.

The flower acted as a portal to the sacred and the divine. Natives of these lands viewed it as a living symbol of cherished remembrance, of faith and spirituality. As a concrete artifact of beauty it allowed them to tap into the lives of their ancestors, with respect and veneration.

With this series of paintings I hope to redefine the flower within a contemporary context and use it to create a bridge between the ancient and the post-modern. Interwoven with my research in Native American culture are baroque influences, the expressiveness of color and light used by Monet and the sensuality and mystery of O’Keeffe.

All this has permitted me to go further, to construct a flower that has been magnified, the color intensified and its voluptuous nature exposed to create a portrait that is as tangible as flesh itself. It is a flower that does not simply depict, but addresses what it means to be human, and at the same time evokes something more, the grandiose, the sublime and the hallucinatory.”