VAPA “Art as Autobiography” Show
ART as Autobiography
VAPA juried exhibition
May, 2025
Opening Reception: May 3, 3-5 PM
The vapa center
700 N Tryon St
Charlotte, NC 28202
Jung refers to the Shadow as a repressed part of ourselves, the potential that if not nourished, deprives us of wholeness, connection, and creative energy.
After decades supporting other creatives, in the last few years I have finally embraced my own identity as an Artist.
“From the Shadows” is a shadow portrait painted a driveway in West Jefferson, where a few months later I created my abstract “Self” series, eleven paintings meditating on the roles and expressions of my identity. “Self Reflection” focused on sisterhood, those partnerships that reflect ourselves back to us most saliently.
My sister has always been AN ARTIST — she knew that about herself, and pursued her passion from an early age. She inspired me, and her bold expression also quieted my own creative urges — Art was her thing.
Both of these paintings celebrate my realization, though still in progress, that it is also my thing.
“Self Reflection” is one of eleven paintings in an abstract series created during visits to our family’s West Jefferson cabin in 2023. The paintings were developed side-by-side, layer-by-layer, each one getting a stroke of every color mixed, with every color mixed from the remainder of the previous color.
These paintings were a meditation on “Self” and each canvas represented a role that make up the whole me… mother, daughter, partner, sister, aunt, artist, entrepreneur, community servant, student, spirit, and potential.
The integration of the last color into the next symbolized the blending of the edges between the moments and experiences of our lives, and the blending of the many parts of ourselves.
In my process, I would add a stroke to address what one painting needed at that moment, but then I would intentionally repeat that mark/color into the other ten paintings, whether they needed it or not. Sometimes that created chaos that had to be addressed with a new mark, which then would impact all of the other paintings. It was a process of integration, and a realization that all roles/parts of ourselves influence one another.
“From the Shadow” is a self-portrait painted in the driveway of a family cabin in West Jefferson, a place where I have been able to regularly retreat for painting and solitude. It is one of a series of Shadow Portraits painted that day, works that I’d always considered incomplete, but have been hesitant to continue, not wanting to obscure the energy of that first alla prima layer, and unclear on what direction I would want for a more “refined” painting. And so they’ve just kept me company in the studio.
And now, thinking about them through Jungian lens, these crude-yet-beautiful paintings are a perfect representation of an artist in the process of of EMERGING from the shadows. Her work is not done but she likes the reflection she sees on the pavement and in the paint.
