Multi-Media Artist who specializes in
conceptual paintings based on moments of time.
*All profits of any sale will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in honor of my mother, Maria C. Jongeling.
Nail polish got me started. As a kid, I would scrape together a pocket full of nickels by cashing in bottles at Lou’s liquor store, then proudly saunter over to the Zody’s on Valley Blvd to trade my coins for nail polish. Every color of polish. This was my kind of paint since it stuck to everything and it sparkled.
I covered everything in nail polish, from Barbies to transistor radios. My Dutch parents, still learning the ways of America, we’re puzzled by their first-born daughter’s artsy tendencies, but they still encouraged me to be independent and creative while plying me with old-world Zoute Drop licorice treats that tasted like wonderful salty car tires. Mmm!
Dixie appeared when I was thirteen. She was my high school art teacher. Dixie helped me to understand how priceless a formal art education could be, and she steered me towards Cal State Long Beach, where I earned a Masters in Art.
Currently, I continue to explore many mediums: photography, ceramics, oils, watercolors, pastels, acrylics and construction. My creative boundaries are ever-expanding as they lead me towards new unknown territory.
Squares are my favorite art shapes. I fill them with meticulously-crafted paintings, low-relief sculptures, and constructions of all sorts. Working with canvas, paint, plumbing hardware, wood, Original Gourmet Lollipops or paper, I configure moments of my life and present them through dynamic images. Sculpted waffles find themselves glued to a canvas; faces of babies act as counterpoint to an acrylic reworking of the Home Depot logo.
Female identity appears regularly in my work, linked with historical art references, pop culture and the polarities of life and death. The subject matter is as prominent as my choice of artist’s materials.
Deeply multi-media, my pieces weave through the wide span of my thoughts, leaving the viewer to conjure their own meanings, memories and mental images.
Recently, I’ve been examining my memories of my travels. Using journals, photographs and collected ephemera from my trips, I create paintings filled with love, self exploration and human relationships with nature.
Exhibitions include the Brea Gallery, MOAH Cedar, Range Projects Gallery, Colony Theatre Gallery, Avenue 50 Studio, Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum, Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center, McGroarty Arts Center, Palos Verdes Art Center, El Pueblo Gallery, Pasadena Public Library, South Bay Contemporary, Woodbury University Nan Rae Art Gallery, USU Art Gallery – CSULB, and The Armory Center for the Arts.