artist statement

I go to my studio everyday

One day I will go and the angel will be there

What if I don’t go and the angel came?

-Philip Guston, artist

As an artist, I believe that hard work and time spent at your craft allow for those serendipitous moments when the angel will be there. I work intensely to have my art appear effortless and unplanned.

Although my work is intrinsically abstract and painterly, I have become more involved with specific imagery over the years, i.e. nature and the human form. I work in a series format allowing one painting to generate the next. Often, I am well into a series when I begin to discover what it is truly about. Generalities become specifics, and as I go deeper into the painting process I become more involved with the painting in a formal way as well as bringing my own thoughts and feelings to it.

Meanings are attached to color and form and imagery begins to infuse my world. Colors are chosen to create dynamic movement as well as to heighten the intensity of a mood. They can be light or dark, luminous or dense, cool or burning. They can bathe a figure in an uncommon light, or lose it in its surroundings. The complexity of color relationships is what is most compelling to me as an artist.

I have spent many years working on large torn and painted paper assemblages. These works literally allow me to hold a color in my hand and place it where it suits my artistic sensibilities. Even when painting directly on canvas, a painting is only "working" for me when each color, every line and form feels as though it was plucked from the universe and landed in the one place it was meant to be. When this happens we call it art.