Jillian Roos-Markowitz - Statement

Searching for a way within, a way which to express my innermost feelings through the creative process, I began to use pieces of wood, broken bits from trees that I walked under, or found in puddles, pieces of bark given by friends both here and abroad.

The wood spoke to me, in it shapes, marks, and rhythms. Taking these into my mind's eye, I began to draw, bringing the shapes, marks and rhythms to the paper before me.

In order not to censor my lines, I began to work with my eyes closed, this took me to the creative side, the right side of the brain. Upon opening my eyes, I allowed only my creative mind to continue with this process, until the drawing was complete - at times it was necessary to close my eyes again if I found myself censoring my line.

Now, using those pieces of wood I find that I am able to go within and through drawing remember my own rhythms, my natural connection with nature. From these drawings I have developed a large body of work. The drawings begged to become three dimensional! I transformed complete drawings into clay relief, then parts of the drawing spoke to me and I worked with those images, transforming them into smaller works in clay.

The medium changes to include wood, plaster, metal and cement and this past year I have taken some of the images from drawings and transferred them to fibre - a medium that I have been familiar with since childhood.

It has been an intimate journey that started some seven years ago, and now I am certain I will continue on and my drawings will always speak to me of the next step the next turn on my creative path.