Artist's Statement
I use oil paint, oil sticks and wax on canvas to create my work. I start with small intimate studies and expand to larger works, often executing several paintings at the same time. I look for the dialogue as my paintings speak to one another. Using progressive layers and glazes, some transparent, some thick and opaque, each brushstroke or mark becomes the topography of the surface. Each layer informs the next.
Direct observation and immersion in the natural world, informs my work and determines its themes: permanence, impermanence, and transience. My paintings discover the tangible and intangible forces that form matter from which our being and our very nature emerge. Rhythm, pattern, and repetition dictate my process and the direction each work will take. The viscosity and consistency of the mediums enhance the work as I smear, drag, rub to create volume and form. The oil sticks, paint, and wax, combined with the shimmering transparent glazes, produce depth. The history of painting, and my study of it, informs each mark I make. Painting makes me pay attention. It entices me into the mystery of nature and the landscape of memory. It is a way of bringing order to the world I know and to the preconscious world of which I know so little. I am fascinated with what came before us, with humankind’s relationship to our living, breathing world. In my work I strive to reveal nature’s known, unknown and unknowable entities. It is my humble hope that audience will respond to these resonances. |