Liminal States

Embodiment has been the theme of my work for almost twenty years. All we know is mediated through the body, and as such, it is the central site of meaning. Simone Weil used the platonic word metaxu to describe anything that could be a bridge or mediation between us and God. The created order, including the human body, is a barrier and at the same time, it is a way through. "Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing that separates them but it is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link." The figures in most of my work echo Weil’s insistence on our bodily fragility. "Our flesh is fragile...our soul is vulnerable ... Our social personality is exposed to every hazard." But it is precisely this intimate fragility that connects us at the core of our being to the cross of Christ.

The figures in most of my images are contrasted with silent planes of steel and gold, which heighten the corporeal, fragile, reading of the figure. In recent years, the discovery of material has been exhilarating. Materials carry meaning. Gold, steel, wax, ash, and lead are all ripe with metaphoric meanings ranging from precious to toxic. Weil would see both the human body and these materials as Metaxu, bridges between us and God. Hence, both the body and materials are potential sites of transcendence.