l am a colorist. I work through improvisation, chance and intuitive risk-taking. Architecture and structure have always been an important part of my visual vocabulary.

My work repurposes found cardboard boxes, creating relief artworks that straddle sculpture and painting. Cardboard packing crates have long fascinated me. I began painting on them in the late 1970s. I am drawn to the restful geometry of the manufactured folds and the stories in the preexisting marks. This raw, soft material gives me permission to run the paint over edges, juxtaposing intense, sensuous paint with neutral cardboard tones. Decisions often spring from the dents, staples and labels.

My process involves building surfaces with layers of paint, pouring more paint over these layers and scraping through them to reveal unexpected color relationships. The corrugation in the cardboard, which is often revealed by tears in the surface, adds pattern and complexity.

These works evoke the shrines I saw on street corners in India. Some conjure the totems in the American Southwest. The larger pieces extend from the wall to the floor, installed in response to the angles of a space. Overlapping flaps create shadows that make subtle color shifts. A light that moves across the paintings shifts the shadows, magically transforming the work. Shining through the openings in the boxes, the light appears to dance.