"Abstraction is reality seen through
the eyes of the miraculous."
About the Artist
Bio
I was born in New York City in 1952 and grew up in a family deeply passionate about art and music. As a third-generation artist with Eastern European Jewish ancestry, I inherited a creative legacy shaped by resilience. Both parents were artists, and I spent my childhood in coastal Connecticut, in a home alive with creativity. My grandfather, Jacob Illions, brought many of our relatives to America during the Holocaust, and their stories, traditions and talents have always been part of my foundation.
I earned a B.A. in Art from the University of Bridgeport, then went on to complete two Master’s degrees from Columbia University—one in art education and another in psychology. This academic background supported a 45-year career where I blended art with healing. I worked in therapeutic settings such as The Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, The Jewish Guild for the Blind, The Rusk Institute, and The August Aichhorn Center in Manhattan, using art to help people meet both physical and emotional challenges.
Later, I transitioned into high school teaching and spent nearly 20 years as both art and special educator at The Young Women’s Leadership School. I have warm memories of that time. Through this, I developed collaborations with institutions like The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, The Guggenheim, The Frick, and Museo del Barrio. These experiences deeply influenced my artistic standards and brought rich opportunities to my students.
Since retiring in 2014, I’ve focused more fully on my own creative work and my daily immersion in it is a must. My art has shifted from plein air landscapes to more abstract explorations. Currently I focus on multimedia work in which environmental, mediative and spiritual themes can emerge. My studio is a sanctuary for me where I pursue my interest in intriguing surface applications, design and interesting pairings of color.
Statement
In my work I do not strive to paint realistically. My work is evocative of the dreamscape—spaces that don’t depict the visible world but evoke internal landscapes. Through abstraction, I create visual fields that feel suspended in time, untethered from the familiar. The use of an atypical perspective invites a sense of weightlessness, a hovering, or drifting when engaging with the surface, as if the work opens a threshold into something felt rather than seen. I believe this shedding of weight departs from corporeal sensibility and invites a sensation of lightness, healing and limitlessness through a suspended space. These are not scenes to interpret, but environments to inhabit—quiet, layered, and emotionally resonant.
The materials are selected for their optical and tactile qualities and for the way they interact through layering and reflection. Encaustic, oil, and cold wax each contribute to surface depth, translucency, and texture, allowing me to shape light and space within the painting.
In some series, the palette strives for a sense of illumination—radiant and inwardly lit with true outdoor, even “heavenly” light. In other series, the color relationships draw from color theory, natural environments and contemporary design, offering a grounded, earthy elegance. Occasional use of gold and silver leaf subtly shift perception, adding visual richness and energy. They resist spatial certainty and pull the viewer into a slower, more immersive engagement.
Many works are designed without a fixed orientation and can be hung in more than one direction, allowing pieces to relate to others across a series. This compositional freedom invites the viewer into a creative dialogue, loosening conventional perspective and encouraging imaginative entry points that feel discovered, not dictated.
I work with palette knives, rags, and fingers—scraping, incising, and embedding to build layered surfaces. These materials respond sensitively to pressure, removal, and reapplication, allowing for precise and intuitive development. The process is physical and structured, yet fluid. Abstraction here is not improvisation, but the result of sustained attention, material engagement, and a deep commitment to presence.
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