ARTIST STATEMENT

Since moving from Boston to California in 2007 I’ve primarily been painting San Diego city, suburban and rural scenes. My paintings are usually made directly from observation done over multiple sittings. I select views for their abstract qualities and what scenes can best entice the loaded brush to translate the visual experience into an expressive pictorial language. I search for ways to reveal the extraordinary in the familiar and delight in finding the visual surprises that close looking offers. I often paint broadly and rapidly; placing emphasis on capturing quickly changing light and using this light to give the painting its structure and unity. My work also seeks dialog with a wide range of past influential painters such as Corot, Cezanne, Morandi, Edwin Dickinson, Fairfield Porter and Antonio Lopez Garcia.

Confronted with quickly changing light there is an urgency that demands higher concentration and rapid decision making to simplify nature’s complexity. I want to convey the sensations I felt when on the scene – not a mere recording of photographic facts but finding pictorial expression based on my personal response to observed situations. I use the strengths and limitations inherent to the scene as I find it - a challenge for me to find the inherent poem the scene is trying to tell and to read it with my own voice.