artist statement

i paint with joy. i am painting for painting’s sake, and my goal is to experience and share the enchantment that comes from looking and painting.

i like to paint from life. i paint still life at home and landscape outside. sometimes i work from graphite sketches made from life. rarely will i work with a photo reference. always i am drawing upon some memory, vague as they can sometimes be.

i avoid narrative in my work. i try not to see “objects.” the only “object” is the scene. and even the scene doesn’t matter that much. last summer i had an epiphany that ‘the subject is simply an architecture for the expression of my experience’ and in this way anything can become a worthy subject.

sometimes i think more about what i don’t want a picture to look like. i’m attracted to things like the way a particular color sits near another. i don’t invent colors- even the strangest looking colors in my work were apparent in some respect. hopefully by showcasing the right colors i can transmit a hierarchy of feelings to the viewer.