Artist Statement
My motivation for painting is to express the ineffable reaction to the beauty of nature and the feeling of connection that results. I first began painting “en plein air” in beautiful places in Virginia, California and France creating a body of well-received and expressive impressionistic landscapes.
The longer I painted, the more I appreciated the Abstract Expressionists and Bay Area Figurative Painters. Good abstract paintings can take on life of their own and provoke intuitive, visceral responses in the viewer. Inspired by these fine American artists, I needed to move beyond the obvious and representational. I try to distill form, simplify the composition and exaggerate the color in an attempt to create something original in my "scapes."
For the past few years I have been exploring landscape as both a recognizable physical place and a place of mind and spirit. I think this work is a confluence of my plein air paintings and abstract works. Although I take a lot of photographs in my travels through beautiful landscapes, these paintings are a product of memory, intuition and imagination created in the studio. I believe I come closer to representing the experience of a place by drawing on the internalized landscape.
My creative journey has also included non-representational work, narrative painting, collage, layering, figuration and photography, among others. I love it all but the mainstay throughout is my desire to express the essence of beauty and nature with paint through abstraction.
My ideas for paintings are also sparked by my internal responses to memories and experience. Each painting is a new collaboration of paint with these perceptions and my attention, intuition and training. The challenge is to use my training and intuition simultaneously while ‘listening’ to the painting with eyes and heart to know what the painting needs and when it is finished.
I love the process of creating an original work of art . For you the viewers, I hope my paintings will spark memories, emotions and a growing love for our magnificent Earth.