I Am
12″ x 9″ x 2.5″, Encaustic on Birch, 2023
I am Resilience I am Resistance I am Powerful I am Still Here
Available
Currently on view at MA Doran Gallery
For inquiries, please contact:
MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700
21”x 23” x 13”, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina
It started with looking at my children playing and making their other world, if they needed wings they would make them from paper and sticks tied together. Their masks were transforming and all-consuming for them they believed and they became the bird.
We use a mask as a facade to be the thing we sometimes can not be, to fill that spot or give us courage.
Sometimes it is the unknown that we fear so we do not step when it is the step into that unknown that we need to live and breath. The figure prepares to fly away on her paper wings. It is a leap of faith that her wings will hold. In that moment she must be fearless to take the leap.
Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
Bloodline: Building Community
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Cedar and Steel, 20” x 84” x 10”, 2022
There is the family you are born into and then there is the family you make. They are the friends you made in school, the neighbor’s you live by and the colleagues at your work. You watch the children grow and tell the secret wishes you have for them. You have meals together; you share in the joy the ups and the down and you bring them love and kindness when they have lost a loved one. We build an extended family that grows year by year and that makes for a community that is full of rich diversity, compassion, and love.
The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.
When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.
Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Currently on view in Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Bloodline: Building Community
Wind Rider
Unique Cast Bronze and Patina, 17” x 48” x 8.5” , 2022
My children and I love to pick up sticks that look like birds or dragons. In the story I made up with my daughter there is a young girl who is playing outside when she hears a rustling in the bushes next to her, as she looks closer, she sees this beautiful dragon emerge with a long body and tail. They both stare at each other in amazement and then the dragon says, “Can you see me? Only MY Rider can truly see me.” The young girl tells the dragon “I can see you”, and then they rode through the skies for the rest of the afternoon. When her mom looked out the window, she only saw her playing with a stick, but for the girl, she saw her dragon, and she was the Wind Rider.
As we get older, I think we forget to see the dragons that are hiding in the sticks and that we can fly through the skies with our arms outstretched, feeling the wind pass beneath us. I try to remember, never stop looking for the magic, and that our dreams can come true.
Available
For inquiries, please contact Bonner David Galleries
Currently on view in Scottsdale
7040 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 | 480.941.8500 | www.BonnerDavid.com
Exhibition History
Wind Rider
As children, we make and wear masks to become anything we want or need to be. We can do anything in them, from being a superhero to a bird in flight. As adults, the layers and meaning of masks deepen and grow. They are a way to represent the different personas that we need or desire to be in life. Masks are an identity that one can live through or hide behind.
RED
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
36″ x 24″
2, 4, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
“Her Story”
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Birch Panel, 12” Round
In each of us, there is a story that only we can tell. It is full of beauty, sadness, laughter, love, tears, and joy. Take the time to breathe in the journey we each are on.
SOLD
For inquiries, please contact:
7040 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 | 480.941.8500 | www.BonnerDavid.com
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
VORTEX
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1-5 edition Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Currently on view in Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
With Wings
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1-5 edition Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Currently on view in Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
In a strategic trickster twist, I feature children, often masked, as a tool to bring the viewer into my work. Masks are multi-layered. They are a mechanism to hide or obscure our true intentions, acting as a wall between us and the world. Masks are also agents of transformation, powerful and sometimes dangerous.
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
GHOST OF THE DEAD
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1, 2, 3, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
They say that to grow a garden is to believe in hope; you must believe that the seeds you put into the earth will grow. The beauty of this simple act has captivated me since I watched my dad garden when I was very small. He would tie string so tight for the beans to climb that when the winds of Oklahoma would blow, the string would sing. It was as if the garden was a symphony in and of itself with the strings and the sound of the corn stalks rattling. The buzz of the bees as they made their way from flower-to-flower fat with the bright yellow pollen and the crackling hum of the cicadas in the late Oklahoma August months. I can close my eyes and am transported back.
“Renewal: The Belief in Hope”
Unique Cast Bronze with Patina and Birch Panel
40” x 30” x 8”
Currently on view and Available at MA Doran Gallery
For inquiries, please contact:
MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700
