Art that is ultimately significant bespeaks desire. It functions to symbolize eternal desire; standing above all transient systems of meaning even as it helps to construct them.

The desire to know and touch the unknown and the unnamable was fanned into flames when I read the work of Julia Kristeva. Her essays on the power of horror and the semiotic and symbolic realms gave impetus to a renewed vigor in abstract imagery in my work. This interest continues through the consistent and thorough investigation of the painted surface.

The art historian and critic Donald Kuspit has informed my work regarding the nature of imagination, the concept of the absurd, and its relationship to our cultural and psychological appropriation of identity. The shaping of identity through idiosyncratic form and the "will to novelty" plays a key roll in the way I turn the external experiences of my life into internal ones. These internal realities manifest themselves through the process of painting.

Embracing iconic forms as the need arises; I explore the disclosure of the inseparability of pleasure, beauty and our understanding of the divine.

Robyn Bomhof
2011