I couldn't stop observing the heavens if my life depended on it. Often, I find myself on the side of the road staring out my car window and seeing it all in pure strokes of paint. When I am not at my easel, I’m still painting in my head.
I’m self-taught and have been creating art from an early age. Currently I work with oils and paint landscapes, often with a focus on clouds. I'm drawn to the distinct lighting effects created in storms and at dusk. Some of my work is scenic, but I also focus on objects such as trees, or elements of city and man made structures in the same manor as a portraitist.
My process begins with small idea sketches. Then I look for components in life that work like the sketch. I shoot photographs, alter the values, color, and composition. I use this manipulated image along with studies and memory as reference for the final work. I develop many ideas simultaneously so I am in constant hunt for reference.
Much of what I paint has personal or spiritual inner meaning - an allegorical component. Its left open for viewer interpretation allowing a sense of deeper meaning.
The ideas I have been working with recently are about the collision of the natural and the man made. To me the duality and tension between these opposing forces is like a symbolic balance of light and dark. I see the light and happiness but cannot escape the dark, realizing how tightly they are woven, that one cannot truly be experienced without the other.
Along with duality Im increasingly interested in chaos. Both the chaos created by man, and as it manifests in nature. As an example, the tangled branches of bare trees along with wire fencing and vines. Or crisscrossing phone and power lines mixed with towers and poles, all set against cloud and sky strata. This vibration of shape and texture, a yin yang of duality, dark and light, natural and man made is mesmerizing, eerie and familiar, all at once. Visual chaos embodies the turmoil of our everyday lives - these tribulations define us as we learn to live with and overcome them. So this seems an ever more appropriate subject as our lives become increasingly complex.
As I explore these concepts and work to bring them to the forefront of my paintings I will refine my ideas, and my work will no doubt continue to evolve as I get closer to their true nature.