About Me
I spent my childhood in the company of my grandparents’ collection of Max Beckmann paintings. My grandfather, Stephan Lackner, met Beckmann in Nazi Germany, and dedicated his life to championing the “degenerate†artist’s work. Beckmann’s paintings instilled in me the firm belief that art is a beacon in times of internal and political unrest. It can be a manifestation of one’s own inner dialogue and a powerful tool to self-knowledge.A California native, I studied painting and sculpture with Elizabeth Murray, Judy Pfaff, and William Tucker at Bard College in New York. While at Bard I completed a double major in Painting and Hindu Studies. My work draws on the Hindu concept of the Residue. The Residue is what is left over from an act of perfection. It is the germ that perpetuates an imperfect world, which is nonetheless beautiful. Hindu mythology regards temple worship as a manifestation of this concept. Offerings are made to the gods in an act of spiritual perfection. After the gods have partaken, what is leftover (the temple, flowers, a charred floor where offerings were burned) is the Residue of a perfect moment. Applied to painting, the emphasis is on the process, and the end result itself is the imperfect Residue. The act of painting correlates to the Hindu act of worship, the painting itself is the Residue, and the process continues when the painting is viewed. In this sense a painting is never finished because each viewer completes it for him or herself.I often use large canvasses so that the evolution of the painting moves in a similar scale to the human body. The paintings take on the form of abstract landscapes that convey a sense of familiarity. I have recently been experimenting with three-dimensional shapes on the surface of the canvas by stitching embroidery or stuffed shapes of canvas onto an un-stretched surface, then mounting the canvas on stretchers.My primary goal as an artist right now is to surround myself with an artistic community that supports and challenges me. I crave the dialogues that spur on new projects. I am not so much concerned with commercial success as I am with creating paintings that explore uncharted territory.
