Photograph by Tessa Nelson Cripe
The images that I create come from a place of deep empathy. Conflicting emotions are seen through veils, distortions and fragmentation of the human body. These are intimate works, full of texture and surfaces that create morbidly beautiful forms. Death and ecstasy, aggression and intimacy, love and solitude, innocence and awareness, strife and survival are contained within each work.
My work is inspired by forensic science and mystery, death and decay, despair and hope, and the extremes of the human body. Romantic and Expressionist tendencies combine to create dark and foreboding imagery.
My work has been exhibited in more than one hundred solo, juried and invitational exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Poland, Ireland, China, Turkey and Japan. I received my MFA from TCU in Fort Worth, Texas, and my BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. I am a Professor of Art – Printmaking at Arkansas State University. I live and work in Paragould, Arkansas with my husband Michael and daughters Lilia and Sylvia.