Artist Statement

I've always painted landscapes. I look carefully at nature and work to come up with a way to translate what I see that's half way between realism and abstraction. Between 2009 and 2020 I focused on seeing every landscape at the moment that I was looking at it as a dominant overall chord of color that was formed by the combination of the different individual colors in it. This is similar to a chord in music which is built by putting several individual notes together to make a harmonious whole. Each paintings done during this time was based on this principle but only rectangles and lines were used as shapes. Since late in 2020 I've been working on a new group of pictures which do the same thing but use asymmetrical compositions and brush strokes that are a bit more loose and free. In the past I've used several different formats for organizing a picture. I think that from one perspective any serious artist is always doing the same painting again and again for their entire life. Over time the format and type of image may change but at its root it’s always the same painting. At least that’s always been true for me.

I begin a painting by doing many small sketches on white paper. When I come up with a composition that I like I draw it with pencil on the final backing ( canvas or museum board ) and start laying in the forms with acrylic because it dries quickly and many changes and adjustments can be made without holding up the process. Though I begin with a definite idea I let the picture tell me what to do as I paint it and it usually ends up being quite different from my original conception.. When everything's in place I fine tune it with oil. This can result in more changes as the process keeps telling me where to go. The painting is usually half in control. It teaches me things as I make it and I usually follow its suggestions but the final solution must relate directly to the scene that I looked at as a starting point.