…”if nothing else, life has taught us all this one thing: whoever is here now will not be here later.” Paul Auster

An exhibition/performance of paintings with collaborative musical works; of presence...absence; remembering…forgetting… 

Elegy is based on a trove of fabrics discovered at the studio of friends in rural Finland—old clothing & textiles torn into strips; wound tight into balls; to be woven into traditional rugs. 

At peripheries—where odd things bump up against one another—these found objects carry stories; discreet bearers of authentic history; each pattern & color marking time; transmitting lives current & past; prima materia.

I paint portraits as a gesture of respect & preservation; a dialogue with each solitary character; & of community.

Elegy is also a homage to Gabriel Fauré’s Élégie (for Cello & Piano op. 24).

Using each pattern, texture & binding I will as well make linear works—songlines—to be interpreted/improvised by a cellist/s; a figurative unwinding to be ‘played’; each ball as linear landscape.

I am also at work with Australian composer Linda Kouvaras on music for solo cello & we will collaborate in a residency at the University of Melbourne later this year.   

Engaging temporality & the possibilities offered by images & music; beginning where verbal/written language ends; with echoes that reverberate & dissipate; the fugitive possibilities of melody & repetition; with impermanence; with personal songbooks & the poetics found in silence.