ARTIST'S STATEMENT

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I have created my most recent work in Oaxaca, Mexico where I now reside most of the year. The works are leather collages on paper and are all mostly abstracted faces that I call Leather Men.

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The Africans are paintings based on photographs I took during a trip to Ghana, Togo, and Benin in West Africa. In 2018, my husband, Harold Kooden, and I traveled through these three countries by car with our driver. We started and ended our journey in Accra, the capital of Ghana. During the five week visit, we covered a lot of territory and toured cities, towns, and villages. The experience was life-changing. To reconnect with people from whom I am descended completely altered my view of self and of family. The folks we met were gracious, inquisitive, and above all lovely. They allowed me to photograph them and these paintings are an homage to their beauty, dignity, and humanity. The painting titled Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana is, in fact, a portrait of Ben, our driver.

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My Portfolio contains a selection of paintings created from 2008 to 2019. Many of them will be included in a solo exhibition at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum of Queens College, New York City from 30 May to 8 August, 2024.