I paint lone women in domestic settings in an effort to express my ideas about human isolation in American suburbs. My subjects are primarily self-portraits but also friends and family, and I work from photographs that I stage and shoot myself. By portraying lone women in suburban environments, I hope to express a truth about the modern world -- that we are most vulnerable when we feel most protected. My figures are nestled under a thick quilt, bundled in a warm coat, stepping inside on a summer night in a flowered dress, or taking a night swim in a lit outdoor pool; their world appears immune to tragedies of war, terrorism, disease, or natural disaster. By having such comforts, my figures, in turn, have everything to lose. In order to convey that there are ever-present physical and emotional dangers lurking beneath the smooth and beautiful surfaces of patterned fabrics, glinting jewelry, and luminous water, the scenes are lit dramatically so that the subject exists in light but is surrounded by shadow. Most scenes take place in the dark of night, and to give the image a charge of disturbance the viewpoint is always that of an outsider looking in, throwing the viewer into the position of voyeur. I want to capture the moment before danger strikes, a quiet moment where something is about to happen. Existence within this small, protected world is thus revealed as fragile, its inhabitants, terribly alone.