Unfinding the Symbolic Subject (2022)

Oil on canvas

6 ft x 7 ft x 2 in

Nearly but not always she regulates tiny semiotic messes into symbolic subjects with

gestures, sounds, tones, words, rules, morals, meanings, choices, hopefully loving in the course of

minutes, hours, days on end, weeks, months, years eclipsing all others, wielding raw power of

reality at the intersection of motherhood and life, shrouded in time before memory ….

Unfinding the Symbolic Subject is a largescale painting exploring the deep attunement that mothers have to the “semiotic,” a pre-lingual highly creative part of psychic reality from which all organized thought flows. According to French philosopher Julia Kristeva, mothers acquire this connection through their participation in the process of a child’s identity formation and language acquisition. She posits that artists and the insane also access this wellspring.