Working with the natural world, I strive to reveal primordial splendor tethered and bound by fragility. The underlying mystery I always search for, is even more pronounced here.
Artist Statement
My current work explores what boundaries I can push as a painter, abstracting nature, currently focusing on water.
After moving to San Francisco to study under Robert Bechtel, I earned my MA in Painting. Bechtel taught us how to see and understand and paint with sensitivity, the nuances of a photographic reference. I began exhibiting work based on the figure, with content informed through mystery and emotion, and a specific kind of light. With shows titled "B Movie" and "Kidnap!" I used staging and posing the models translating them into larger than life-sized paintings, replicating movie stills.
Now, working with the natural world, I strive to reveal primordial splendor tethered and bound by fragility. The underlying mystery I always search for, is even more pronounced here. Hunting for rather than staging my images, I photograph familiar places: the swamps of Southeast Louisiana, and the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. The transformation of photographic source material into acrylic and oil paintings take on an electric-like effect, with shimmering light rays glancing off the reflected upside-down world we first see on the water's surface. The view into the depth below continues, then brings us back around to viewing the surface, again.