Ink, graphite and clay board. Everything begins with a circle.

I have been building this series for the past three years and in many ways, it represents my time living in the Roanoke Valley sheltered by the Blue Ridge mountains.  My time like my work has been defined by my roles as a mother, a wife, a teacher and an artist.  As a middle aged, middle class former stay at home mother, economic solvency has been the driving force for radical changes in my family’s life choices.  I have moved from Philadelphia, my home of 20 years and the place where my sons were born, to North Texas for 3 years and then Blue Ridge, Virginia for the past 5 years. As the wife of a retired Philadelphia Police officer and subsequent foreign contractor in Afghanistan I have had to learn new definitions and configurations of marriage and parenting. As an Asian American woman from the North raising her sons in the South I have had to clearly define my values while adapting to my surroundings. Additionally, in 2016 I had a serious car accident and fractured my pelvis in four places. When you find yourself thankful to be alive and then able to roll over in bed, you gain a good deal of perspective.

Each piece in this show is both a meditation and a story. The stories are rooted in my odyssey, my search for balance, beauty and affirmation in the telling of the tales. The series is titled Gold and Desire, because it represents my search for gold; as reverence, value, and security, as well as my struggle with the many desires; abstract and material that both compel and bind me.

The work is abstract as it evolves subconsciously. The pattern begins and I follow. The patterns and forms reference my fascination with cells, microbiology, and reproduction, and have evolved over the last 14 years into a personal visual vocabulary. I work in the moment and commit myself to the uncertainty.

Ad. Herzel