PHILOSOPHY

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” I believe that probably everything has already been done, but we take our experiences and proceed to reinvent the world around us. Otherwise, it gets boring.

I believe a state of art is achieved through practice, experimentation, and an appetite for looking and studying our environment as well as our inner psyche. Painting is as natural as breathing. The subject of a painting is as it appears, but the art is modified by what we bring to it. Mistakes are made (so we think) and the experience teaches us more than any academic training. Wonderful and exciting changes occur from the original vision to the final product.

Being an avid gardener, my muse is the natural world, where every color can be found in some plant or some animal, on land or at sea. I am captivated by the movement and motion of this great world; how it cycles, changes, expands, and recycles.  I try to view death not as an end, but a beginning for something else. Gardening has certainly piqued my curiosity and wonder at the beauty of our macrocosm, and I am convinced it causes one of the greatest impacts on my work.  Nurturing plants in my created landscape cultivates the emotions that prompt me to study the world more closely.

My works stem from my desire to integrate drawing and abstraction into a balanced, complete final product.  These drawings are studies of the tiny objects I find in nature.  Living in the city, I am always amazed by Man’s inventions but I am in complete awe of Nature’s creations.  My own garden has a surprising abundance of wildlife against a backdrop of looming towers.  Every walk I take, through the neighborhood or park, is a nature hunt and I return home inevitably with a treasure.

In response to these precise, calculated studies, I paint an abstracted interpretation and strive to create a feeling of movement within the surface.  This switching of gears keeps me from getting too comfortable with the process of creating.

I explore color theory and what happens visually when colors are put next to or on top of one another. I explore composition: how one less or one more painted layer transforms the entire piece, and I practice restraint or indulgence as the need arises.

Every painting is an experiment as I aim to investigate processes and techniques with each one.  I have no fixed or resolute procedure, and however subtle, my works are progressing and developing with my openness to what happens next.