Orchard of Skulls

This collection is divided into two sections, one for children and one for water. Even though I knew my work was rather surreal and fable-like, I did not notice these motifs running through nearly every single piece until during the revision process, and the thesis can be easily divided between pieces involving children and those involving water with few overlaps. Only after looking back on my work did I consider that my two main tools, children and water, are vital representations of potential growth and creation. Sometimes the creation is unrealized or even killed, like a stone baby crumbling into fine sand, but even a lost potential creates its own story, like Grimm\u27s willful child whose death encompasses her short tale. My short works involving water evolve out of these fairytale stories. In these pieces, paint, electricity, even the nature of the world itself, is as fluid as water. My children live in an uneasy, fluid world and grow into adults that exist in a transitory state exploring the broken rules of the world. Paint is just as alive as the artist and provides both an escape and a outward manifestation of their inner psyche. Although the rules may be broken, the rules still hold true. Forms change but the pattern remains the same so that life takes root in inanimate things but still behaves according to the rules of its dual nature. (Abstract shortened by UMI.