statement

Although my paintings are most easily categorized as landscapes, I think of them as contemplative spaces in which to experience dualities and polarities within human nature, the natural world and the practice of painting. For instance; growth and decay, the illusion of depth and flatness, the "truth" of  photography and the "fiction" of painting, the differences  between our ideals and our actions.

I use somewhat flat skies and backgrounds with a closely grouped color and value range not only to achieve an atmospheric depth and push/pull with the foreground elements but also with an eye towards achieving the sort of meditative space that color field painting can have. The foreground elements are handled in a more gestural way exploring the surrogate potential of plants and artifacts that at turns could suggest portraiture, narratives or gestural abstraction.

I like to think of the scenes I depict as getting at a sort of collective unconscious as they are the

spaces in between our destinations, in between nature and civilization, a view of the sordid artifacts of our backyard activities, before we've had a chance to pick up and present a crafted image of ourselves to our guests, revealing things  about ourselves that we might not be comfortable with. Quite often our actions are revealed to be at odds with our ideals. The genre of landscape painting has a history of expressing a romanticized view of our relationship to nature, beauty, and spirituality that I embrace as a counterweight to the banality and degradation present in these views of our contemporary environment. The POV is that of the transitory, comfortably detached and sometimes meditative space of the automobile. Cycles of growth and decay are evident in both nature and in the artifacts of human activity present in the scenes.

In my approach to my work I find an appreciation for absurdity and humor in the subjects I work with that serves as a useful counterweight to some of the heavier implications the artifacts could suggest about us and to try to keep multiple possibilities in play for possible reflection and growth.

bio

born: 1958, San Diego, California

education

Claremont Graduate University, MFA 2002

selected awards/honors

Louisiana Purchase 2013 Exhibition, Best in Show Award

Ahmanson Foundation Fellowship 2000-2002

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Visions of Growth and Decay, Mary Wilfred Moffett Gallery, Ruston, Louisiana, 2013

Artifacts of Desire, Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, California, 2012

George Billis Gallery, Culver City, California, 2007

Somewhere Else, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, California, 2006

selected group shows

Group Show curated by Mat Gleason, Red Pipe Gallery, Chinatown, Los Angeles, California, 2013   

Louisiana Purchase, F. Elizabeth Bathea Gallery, LATec, Ruston, Louisiana, 2013

Gala Exhibition, MOAH, Lancaster, California, 2012

Tel-Art-Phone, Beacon Arts Cente, Inglewood, California, 2011