artist statement

Like many artists and creatives, I am an introvert. I look to solitude to refresh and reinvigorate, to provide a quiet base of support that allows me to paint with strength and abandon. As the years pass, I find myself embracing my inner introvert. So it is perhaps not surprising that my paintings reflect the need for a world without conflict, a world at peace.

There are those that postulate there will never be true peace on this planet as long as human beings exist. In some ways I have taken this idea to heart in my artwork.

Newly graduated from RISD in 1976, I painted figuratively. Portraits and individuals in real and surreal landscapes made up the bulk of my painting for years. But a funny thing happened about three decades ago – people disappeared from my paintings altogether.

Instead I began to focus on the natural plant world. Not man’s version of nature confined to a specific place with neatly trimmed and chem-sprayed lawns, but a powerful force that cannot be contained. I fantasized about what the world might look like without humankind's involvement – no rectangular concrete buildings, city grids or asphalt ribbon highways. I created a world where nature is an untamed tapestry, a planet where no human treads – a planet strong, wild and at peace.

I am not naive enough to believe nature is perfectly peaceful. Plants compete for space and resources as we humans do. But I am human and everyday I see examples of how we have failed our world. I’d like to give nature a chance to do better.

I have talent and tools. I have an affinity for color, seeing and painting colors that most people can’t discern. I use space and line, movement and rhythm, and any tool at my disposal to get my point across.   

I paint large, both in the scale of my actual paintings and the size of the plant life itself. 
I want the viewer to understand the life force that plants and trees contain. There are redwoods that are quite literally as high as a football field is long. There are bristlecone pine trees that are 5000 years old. There is power in the tiniest of plants and the tallest trees.

I seek to portray that power by painting nature, not as we see it, but as it might see itself – intertwined, co-dependent and woven into a single living indomitable organism.