Artist's Statement

The orchestration of color, texture and technique create images that transcend the simple identification of figure-ground relationships to provide compositions that initiate introspection and evoke memories.

Critical to the work is an exploration of color relationships.  Colors are pushed and pulled to create depth and nuance, whether it is manifested in a thirty piece study exhausting the abundant relationships of three colors or a larger work that emphasizes the intricacy of one color on a single surface.  Color selection and composition are wedded to observations of the natural environment and the artist’s experience of object and place.

Biography

For the past ten years I have been pursuing a path of discovery in paint, exploring the nuances of color mixing and compositional arrangement.  Aspiring towards these innovations, I rely on intuition, instinct, and experience, rather than a strict adherence to formulas.  These fundamentals are as essential to creating my work as are the paint and surface.

Beginnings

In the beginning, I created art that was wild, all over the page, and somewhat directionless.  I drew huge compositions on walls, carved images of primal female forms on woodblocks, and painted on recycled lumber found in a Parisian dumpster. My creativity never ceased, but I found myself questioning whether the works were successful. Was successful work the ability to link conceptual thought to a practical application?

I became determined to root out the meaning of success and thus devised a process which I hoped would lead me to an answer. I started by using paint on a two-dimensional surface with nothing other than primary colors and a palette knife.  Focusing exclusively on painting, I aimed to better understand the essence of expression, creativity, and successful art.  It is this pursuit of success that led me to develop my own direction and technique.

Foundation

After a few years of academic investigation of color, I realized that my color choices directly reflected my surroundings. For instance, colors that appeared on the canvas demonstrated the changes a plant experiences during its lifecycle, from seedling to decay. Using color harmonies found in nature, I was able to abstract an initial observation into essential color relationships and adjacencies.  The plant disappeared to reveal only a marriage of colors.

These observations also helped hone my technique. I found that the slightest increase or decrease of pressure applied to the palette knife had the ability to transform the work. During my process, paint is pushed and pulled across a surface to reveal the nuances of color interaction.

Today, the core element in my work is color. I strive to manipulate the paint into a pure, harmonious interaction unobstructed by any identifiable entities.

Society

The creation of nuance within the paintings is how I see myself as an artist, as a filtered transmitter of an environment, a notion of society.  The milieu of society is interwoven through paint as color and texture create an image.  The scent of society is inhaled by artists and exhaled through creative works. The paintings attempt to answer the cry for a pause in life, to look at something that celebrates simple beauty in multifaceted ways.

Influences

For inspiration, I draw upon the earth's natural cycles and phenomena. Few of us have the luxury of being able to observe the lifecycle of a flower. Yet through my paintings, I'm able to capture all its nuances in a single composition.

Several artists have also influenced my approach; I look to Antoni Tapies for his mastery of texture, Gerhard Richter for color and scale, Peter Dreher for consistency, Jackson Pollock for process, Willen De Kooning for abstraction, and to Andy Goldsworthy for his use of uncontrived building materials.

Experience

During the past decade I have been active in the San Diego art community teaching academic figure drawing to graduate students at UCSD, adult oil painting courses at the San Diego Museum of Art, and youth programs in the Encinitas and Carlsbad School districts. I am an Artist in Residence at the William D. Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad and participate in a number of community art events and shows.