In her paintings, Ileen tries to capture everything about a moment in time: the light, the feeling, the sense of space, the action, the stillness. In all of her paintings she tries to connect with the subject so that by the time she is finished she feels like she has inhabited the scene and hopes the viewer does too. When Ileen paints and observes the world around her she is made aware of the existence of layers. Nothing is opaque. Everything appears to be composed of layers of shifting colors, light, and shapes all superimposed upon each other. This astonishes and inspires her. She opten paints over colored grounds or older paintins and is excited by the ghost images that peek through.