Artist Statement:

Primacy of spontaneity, trust in accident and chance have consistently driven my work. I am also driven by my eyes wild excitement from the work of others, the landscape and anything else that generates a spark visually, mentally or experientially. De Kooning, Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Howard Hodgkins and Matisse are important artists for me. So are the American Realists Fairfield Porter, O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and many contemporaries working today. I’m interested in where the physicality of painting meets the experience of being in and observing nature. The landscape and the garden are endlessly informing and joyous for me. I’m also heavily invested in the capability and temperament of paint itself. My florals and abstractions are a dialogue between the two. I love the iconic power a flower, a field, a farmhouse or that a shoreline emanates. Yet I also believe meaning is derived from the delivery of the paint handling – by the way paint is loaded, pulled, layered, scraped, spilled or gestured. The way color trumps detail. The way temperature and mood dominate subject matter: A crude mark that comes naturally. I work to realize inherently beautiful structure and emotive grace or weight, to balance, evoke and stimulate visual sentiment that resonates with the awe of the familiar.