Mixed media

For me, mixed media is about two things.

First, it is about mastering different techniques and materials and bringing them together to create one original work of art. Each medium has its own character, limitations, and possibilities. Drawing, printmaking, collage, ink, pencil, pastel, paint, and found materials can speak very different visual languages. The challenge—and the pleasure—is finding a way for them to coexist without competing with one another.

Second, mixed media is about judgment. It is the constant process of looking, weighing, adding, removing, hiding, revealing, covering something completely and sometimes bringing a fragment of it back again. A work can change direction many times while I am making it. Something that seemed essential in the beginning may eventually disappear beneath another layer, while a tiny accidental mark may become the most important part of the finished piece.

Mixed media can be extraordinarily complex, built from many layers of materials and techniques, or it can appear almost effortless and simple. I am naturally drawn to complexity. To me, the process sometimes feels like an archaeological excavation site—but in reverse. Instead of digging through layers of history, I am building them, one on top of another. Earlier decisions remain underneath the surface, sometimes visible and sometimes buried, but still contributing to what the artwork eventually becomes.

And yet, complexity is not what I want the viewer to experience in the end. When I am exceptionally successful, all that construction, reconsideration, covering, uncovering, and layering somehow disappears. The finished piece looks simple and light—as if it arrived that way naturally.

That is probably what I love most about mixed media: underneath something that can feel as light as a breath, there may be an entire history.