My work varies from small drawings and studies to large mixed-media pieces on paper and canvas. The large pieces mainly employ acrylics, with the addition of pastel, ink, charcoal, and collage (usually repurposed wallpaper scraps or magazine photographs). Occasionally I use less traditional materials, like coffee, shellac, commercial varnishes and housepaint. These media provide great flexibility and speed when executing ideas that occur while standing in front of a piece in progress, and seeing the results in the same session, when they can be quickly edited or preserved, as they succeed or fail.

I am basically a mark maker. This is largely manifested in an expressionistic visual vocabulary. These marks are fished out of the ocean of experience, panic, joy, regret, love, anger, etc. (Using collage or other materials is simply another mark making process). I feel that composing with these marks, with their particular attributes-color, value, texture, direction, sharpness, etc, is a way of taming something, or accepting something, giving it form, and thereby disarming it or giving permanence. The overall image remains energetic, yet locked-in somehow.

I am conscious of the physicality of the materials and their various qualities such as heaviness/lightness, translucency/opacity, facture, dryness/wetness. I use those qualities to create invigorating points of contrast. Pieces can begin with a with a visualization of some mark or shape taken from the visible world, or developed spontaneously. The elements that are obviously representational are visually reconstituted to a point where they may or may not be recognizable, even collaged photographs. I let the compositional elements as they are deployed inspire the direction of the piece. Any mark, color, device may be edited out, provided the goal of creating a suggestive, resonant field of marks and colors is achieved. All the constituent, formal parts, however demonstrative or idiosyncratic in themselves, unify for the viewer, to create a distinct composition that expresses a unique feeling.

In a sense, my art forms a register of all the moments of art-making, the second-by-second evolving conspiracy between thought and action that occurs in front of the paper or canvas. I am trying to solve the visual and emotional riddle that the first applications of media put forth. I am not generally trying to express a distinct emotion or idea or tell a particular story. The final field of elements tells its own story, or rather, the viewer creates that meaning for themselves, based on how they engage in the piece. I try to leave the piece in a coherent visual condition that facilitates an undistracted experience for the viewer.

By reducing experience to fundamental visual elements, and combining those elements I get to create a small, new world. Each piece is its own thing, existing on its own terms. When a piece comes together, it is like being able to take a deep, cleansing breath. There is emotional clarity.

Most of the art on this site is available for purchase. Payment through Venmo, with other options soon to be available. Please contact me for more information. Thank you!