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By the time I was thirteen I had traveled to twenty-three countries in Europe and West Africa, some of which no longer exist. I am unable to locate myself in any specific geographic location in this world where economics, communications and invasions have disrupted borders and re-drawn boundaries. When asked, "Where do I come from?" I have no answer. I find no "here" here.
Inventing images on the painted surface enables me to I examine both the incoherence and the beauty in disorientation. I explore how the loss of familiar surroundings affects personal identity. The refuges I have forfeited are not simply lost places. Rather, they are complex narrative experiences requiring translation in order to be comprehended. In myth and folktale, the trickster travels between the "underworld" and "this world" disguised, preventing immediate recognition, capture and death. I seek to reclaim the advantages of that role when confronted with remembered realities. Using the symbolic disguises of masks, toys, or games, and passing through mirrors, boxes without backs, or windows I seize my recollections. Returning from that under/other world I use those transformed memories to place myself in the present.
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