My Healing Figure constructions and sculptures explore the relationship between art and medicine by examining the figure, its fragmentation, and its connections. While the constructions explore the relationship of the outer body to its inner parts, the smaller, life-sized sculptures probe this inner/outer correlation by examining the body's bones and organs.

Although stylistically different, both bodies of work are thematically analogous. The sculptures synecdocally evoke man's ills; the constructions metaphorically heal them by conjoining canvas framents, India ink, paints, and pastels combines with bandages, medical tape, and X-rays. Many of the techniques used in making these constructions- cutting, suturing, and taping- are shared with the physician.

The relationship of art to medicine may be as old as the first caveman. Scholars have speculated that he drew his mystical signs and images on the walls of caves to propitiate the gods for good health, or for a successful hunt. Later examples of this connection between art and medicine can be seen in Navaho sandpainting and in the twentieth century work of shaman-artists such as Joseph Beuys.

Besides these influences, my constructions have been informed by Matisse's color cutouts, Schwitter's collages, and Picasso's fractured forms. Like cubism, my work insists on the viewer's active engagement in the reconstruction of each figure. The Healing Figures are gesturally ambiguous, leaving the analysis and interpretation of each figure's form and movement to the viewer.

The Healing Figures blur the line between conventional art categories. They contain painting, drawing, and sculptural elements, yet are none of these. They mix traditional art materials with untraditional ones. They draw from sources from prehistory to twentieth century technology. However it is through the synthesis of these opposing elements that the Healing Figures define themselves.

This artwork's purpose is to provide viewers with imagery which might act as a window to the unconscious and thus restore their homeostasis. Carl Jung in Man and His Symbols explains that the general function of dreams is to create psychological balance by producing dream material that restores psychic equilibrium. He concludes that visualization and imaging also serve this compensatory function. I hope that through the visualization process viewers engage in while examing thes body body images then might acquire self-knowledge which results in psychic well-being,equanimity, and redemption.

Although a few of my pieces refer to specific illnesses such as breast cancer and AIDS, my Healing Figures generally envision Art as a nurturant available and indicated for everybody, both healthy and infirm. I see my Healing Figures functioning as a balm and analgesic for the violence, suffering, and poverty of spirit pervasive in daily life.

At this time in our country's history when the general public, patients, and physicians alike are frustrated, frightened, and disatisfied by today's healthcare delivery system, it is critical that Art's value as a force for healing be examined and recognized.