ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are fictional constructs that represent a long and delicate negotiation between what is “out there” in the world—the objects in a still life; the rocks, hills, or bodies of water in a landscape—and my own personal response to them. Though the final work moves away from literal representation, each painting is grounded in the act of observation, of looking hard at what is before me. Aesthetically and philosophically, it is crucial to me that this be the case.

Typically, I work on a series of related paintings. The repeated observation of my subject matter familiarizes me with its particularities: the relationships among objects; the interplays of color shape, light and shadow; and the dialogue between space and flatness. I find that the more intimate I become, the more I can invent and deviate, allowing for that crucial move from description to interpretation.

This process of translating a field of rocks or a group of objects on a table into an arrangement of color and physical marks on paper or canvas—one that compels and satisfies—is always my task. The push-pull between observation and representation, between literal reality and its abstraction on canvas, challenges and motivates me as I paint. The result, I hope, is a fiction that—like the best literary fiction—resonates with the viewer’s own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.