For many years I have expressed my love of nature on canvas. In all of my work I look for the bits of 'magic' or the 'mystery' of life that I perceive. I ultimately boil this down to my search for spirit. I have found it in the surprises of light playing against itself, or in color showing up in vividness or subtlety. There are moments when I am outdoors and I sense the beauty and energy around me, and my presence lost within it. As a child I spent much of my time in the garden or the field searching for the tiniest worlds lost to most people. As I grew up I painted these worlds in an over-sized format. The canvasses seemed to command, 'Look at what I see'.
In recent years that commanding tone has become more of a questioning one. The absolutes of youth fading, whether by choice or not. I was driven to create more random compositions, combining nature with human interaction, sometimes not so positively. The paintings became more severe as I explored environmental degradation and the fear it filled me with. But the end results were uncomfortable and left me unsatisfied. While still craving to put that discourse in to the world, I want to present enough of that early mystery in order to give reason to protect it. And as I did as a child, I want to celebrate the wildness and inherent beauty that is around us.
In recent years that commanding tone has become more of a questioning one. The absolutes of youth fading, whether by choice or not. I was driven to create more random compositions, combining nature with human interaction, sometimes not so positively. The paintings became more severe as I explored environmental degradation and the fear it filled me with. But the end results were uncomfortable and left me unsatisfied. While still craving to put that discourse in to the world, I want to present enough of that early mystery in order to give reason to protect it. And as I did as a child, I want to celebrate the wildness and inherent beauty that is around us.