Painting has always been central to my activities as an artist.  The subject matter has evolved from the landscape to the figure and back again with many complex variations in between. In the past year the figure has forced its way back into the landscapes again as my main focus. Even though each figure has a generalized contemporary character, they always express a basic human emotion, a throb that goes beyond any specific culture or time. What exactly are these figures doing? I want this question to remain a mystery that viewers must answer for themselves.

Painting gives me a stage upon which I can gather the flux of human action and changes in the landscape into a still image, one that I can contemplate slowly, meditate on. This allows me to form a deep concept that helps me understand my sense of our times and what they mean to me.

My process is to work by trial and error from life, from small sketches of models and paintings done on site. Back in my studio these small studies are combined, distorted, recombined, rejected and brought back until I have constructed an image that is resolved.  I build the final paintings up with layers of under drawing, glazes, over painting, scraping, and more glazes, always looking for an intuitive "rightness."

born: 1935, Chicago, Illinois

education:

University of Michigan, 1963
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1958

selected awards/honors

First Place Jurors' Award, OOVAR Exhibition, Metropolitan Library, Columbus, OH, 2007
OAC Fellowships 1981, 1982, 1996
Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship Award, 1992
Research Grant, Ohio University, 1981

selected publications

Columbus Dispatch, August 31, 2008, article and color reproduction
New American Painting, 1997 Art News, review, February, 1982 More Than Land and Sky: The Art of Appalachia, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1980

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Altered Landscapes, Solo Exhibition, Dublin Arts Council, Dublin, OH, 2008
Rosewood Arts Centre Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Kettering, OH, 2000
Dark Landscapes, Lecture/Solo Exhibition, Colchester Institute, Colchester, UK, 1991
Narratives, Solo Exhibition, Josef Gallery, New York, NY, 1981

selected group shows

Celebration of Creativity: The OAC 1980-2005, Riffe Gallery, Columbus, OH, 2007
Watermedia 2003, American Watermedia Societies, Bank of America, Houston, TX, 2003
Gallery Artists, Struve Gallery, Chicago, 1998
Artists Invite Artists, Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, TN, 1993