Elevation - 2023
I spent the past four years living at 8,500 feet, on the side of a mountain. I drank in the light and color, clarity and distance, movement and quiet. With each day above, below, and within the clouds, I came to not only see the landscape with my eyes, but also feel it in my body. I want these paintings to convey some of that sensation of living at elevation.
Horizons - 2021
The idea of a horizon is filled with metaphor - new horizons and distant horizons - describe change and aspirations, but for me it is a literal concept. Seeing the horizon is fundamental to my psychological well being. I have found that to feel at ease in my world, I need to look up and out, I need to feel the space -- the distant hills or mountains, fading lines of trees, the flat expanse of water. As I travel through the world, I am always seeking the horizon and its landscape building blocks. I examine the clouds, the way the light is hitting different places, the change of the color in the sky, the way a yellow field can feel like a glowing stripe across a valley, the lines and shapes that are created by the contours of hills and mountains. I take the time to observe because the details evoke an emotional response. I am pulled out of my noisy head. When I paint, all of these pieces come together to inform my composition, color placement, feeling of light, and development of space. I am not thinking about the one place where I saw all of these elements together, I am thinking about the elements and how they fit into my painting. I am thinking about recreating the idea and feeling that drew me in - the horizon that has set me at ease.
Sea, Land, and Sky - 2019
Sea, land, and sky. These most basic elements of the natural world captivate me. A band of light dances across the surface of the water. A shadow defines the edge of a mountainside. A shift of color marks the sky below and above the clouds. These relationships of light, line, and color are my experience of a landscape, and they return when I sit in my studio to paint. These paintings come from simple ingredients: Memory and imagination. Sea, land, and sky.
Someplace Else - 2017
Every time I move somewhere new -- every four years or so -- I spend time feeling disconnected. Why did I go so far away? Where do I really belong? Can I reinvent myself in this new place? I paint my way toward the answers. This is especially true with my egg tempera paintings. Egg tempera doesn’t glide around the way oil does. It doesn’t abide being moved from here to there, or wiped off the canvas to try another direction. Egg tempera hits the panel and stays put. There is a solidity, a rooted-ness to it. In order to build an egg tempera landscape, I sit for hours laying down line after line, layer upon layer. If I work long enough, the unfamiliar language and customs around me fall away. And I’m someplace else. Someplace I’ve made, someplace that draws on the memory of all the places I have traveled and lived and made my home. Sometimes, it’s a glimpse of sky in a faraway place. Other times, it’s a field that I saw a thousand times as a child. This has been a hard couple of years to be away from home. Lots of things have changed and are changing still. I hope that these reflections of my visual experience will bring you to a time you remember, somewhere familiar or, if needed, just someplace else.
Home - 2013
A poet wrote that "a person who is at home with himself will find the universe home-like." When I paint, I draw on the memory of every place I have traveled and lived. Sometimes a glimpse of sky in a faraway place. Other times a field that I saw a thousand times as a child. The Greek landscape filled with light and islands, the mid-Atlantic countryside I grew up in, and, most recently, the cloud-filled mountains of Ecuador are the inspiration for my work. Soon the red deserts of Jordan will join the list. But these paintings are not a travelogue. I hope they are something more universal. I hope that these reflections of my visual experience will bring you, the viewer, to a place you remember, somewhere familiar. Painting these lines, shapes, and subtleties of tone brings me calm and peace. A sense that I am home.
When encircled by a poetry of lines and tones occurring harmoniously in nature, I feel awed and small in the enormous expanse. I see this space not only as a location, but an inspired idea awaiting translation. The concept of being part of something larger compels the ideas and intentions in my work.
While the Greek landscape filled with light and islands, the mid-Atlantic countryside I grew up in, and most recently, the cloud-filled mountains of Ecuador are the inspiration for my artwork, my hope is that the images themselves have become something more universal. My landscapes are paintings and prints meant to give a degree of ambiguity that allows them to provoke a sense of familiarity and calm without presenting a specific location. I am attempting to share my world and give an understanding that these lines, shapes, and subtleties of tone bring me a sense of calm, peace, and awe. I do not wish to offer social discourse; I am simply trying to express beauty.
Influences
I have found inspiration in various artists, all of whom have a particular poetry in line and composition that draws me to their work.
Japanese and Chinese woodblock prints, mainly landscape, have made me aware of the importance and weight of the simple line and the space that is not completely real. Many prints of the Art Nouveau period were also influenced by these Asian artists and attract me in a similar manner. The etchings of Rembrandt are an inspiration for their rich, dark accumulation of layered line in contrast to the ephemeral faint marks that go back into space. Andrew Wyeth’s landscapes have a heightened sense of reality that suggest abstraction in being almost too real. I am also attracted to the sense of space Wyeth creates and the composition of figures and curves. Late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings have a beautiful sense of poetry in the lines of garments and the curves of the groupings of figures. Specifically, it is Duccio’s use of line to follow the edges of his curving robes, Giovanni Belinni’s compositions of curves as his figure’s robes and arms line up throughout the paintings, and Botticelli’s distortion of the human figure to create a more beautiful line that serve as clear inspiration for my work.
On the whole, the work that I am most attracted to and inspired by is filled with a sense of calm and beauty in line and form.
I spent the past four years living at 8,500 feet, on the side of a mountain. I drank in the light and color, clarity and distance, movement and quiet. With each day above, below, and within the clouds, I came to not only see the landscape with my eyes, but also feel it in my body. I want these paintings to convey some of that sensation of living at elevation.
Horizons - 2021
The idea of a horizon is filled with metaphor - new horizons and distant horizons - describe change and aspirations, but for me it is a literal concept. Seeing the horizon is fundamental to my psychological well being. I have found that to feel at ease in my world, I need to look up and out, I need to feel the space -- the distant hills or mountains, fading lines of trees, the flat expanse of water. As I travel through the world, I am always seeking the horizon and its landscape building blocks. I examine the clouds, the way the light is hitting different places, the change of the color in the sky, the way a yellow field can feel like a glowing stripe across a valley, the lines and shapes that are created by the contours of hills and mountains. I take the time to observe because the details evoke an emotional response. I am pulled out of my noisy head. When I paint, all of these pieces come together to inform my composition, color placement, feeling of light, and development of space. I am not thinking about the one place where I saw all of these elements together, I am thinking about the elements and how they fit into my painting. I am thinking about recreating the idea and feeling that drew me in - the horizon that has set me at ease.
Sea, Land, and Sky - 2019
Sea, land, and sky. These most basic elements of the natural world captivate me. A band of light dances across the surface of the water. A shadow defines the edge of a mountainside. A shift of color marks the sky below and above the clouds. These relationships of light, line, and color are my experience of a landscape, and they return when I sit in my studio to paint. These paintings come from simple ingredients: Memory and imagination. Sea, land, and sky.
Someplace Else - 2017
Every time I move somewhere new -- every four years or so -- I spend time feeling disconnected. Why did I go so far away? Where do I really belong? Can I reinvent myself in this new place? I paint my way toward the answers. This is especially true with my egg tempera paintings. Egg tempera doesn’t glide around the way oil does. It doesn’t abide being moved from here to there, or wiped off the canvas to try another direction. Egg tempera hits the panel and stays put. There is a solidity, a rooted-ness to it. In order to build an egg tempera landscape, I sit for hours laying down line after line, layer upon layer. If I work long enough, the unfamiliar language and customs around me fall away. And I’m someplace else. Someplace I’ve made, someplace that draws on the memory of all the places I have traveled and lived and made my home. Sometimes, it’s a glimpse of sky in a faraway place. Other times, it’s a field that I saw a thousand times as a child. This has been a hard couple of years to be away from home. Lots of things have changed and are changing still. I hope that these reflections of my visual experience will bring you to a time you remember, somewhere familiar or, if needed, just someplace else.
Home - 2013
A poet wrote that "a person who is at home with himself will find the universe home-like." When I paint, I draw on the memory of every place I have traveled and lived. Sometimes a glimpse of sky in a faraway place. Other times a field that I saw a thousand times as a child. The Greek landscape filled with light and islands, the mid-Atlantic countryside I grew up in, and, most recently, the cloud-filled mountains of Ecuador are the inspiration for my work. Soon the red deserts of Jordan will join the list. But these paintings are not a travelogue. I hope they are something more universal. I hope that these reflections of my visual experience will bring you, the viewer, to a place you remember, somewhere familiar. Painting these lines, shapes, and subtleties of tone brings me calm and peace. A sense that I am home.
When encircled by a poetry of lines and tones occurring harmoniously in nature, I feel awed and small in the enormous expanse. I see this space not only as a location, but an inspired idea awaiting translation. The concept of being part of something larger compels the ideas and intentions in my work.
While the Greek landscape filled with light and islands, the mid-Atlantic countryside I grew up in, and most recently, the cloud-filled mountains of Ecuador are the inspiration for my artwork, my hope is that the images themselves have become something more universal. My landscapes are paintings and prints meant to give a degree of ambiguity that allows them to provoke a sense of familiarity and calm without presenting a specific location. I am attempting to share my world and give an understanding that these lines, shapes, and subtleties of tone bring me a sense of calm, peace, and awe. I do not wish to offer social discourse; I am simply trying to express beauty.
Influences
I have found inspiration in various artists, all of whom have a particular poetry in line and composition that draws me to their work.
Japanese and Chinese woodblock prints, mainly landscape, have made me aware of the importance and weight of the simple line and the space that is not completely real. Many prints of the Art Nouveau period were also influenced by these Asian artists and attract me in a similar manner. The etchings of Rembrandt are an inspiration for their rich, dark accumulation of layered line in contrast to the ephemeral faint marks that go back into space. Andrew Wyeth’s landscapes have a heightened sense of reality that suggest abstraction in being almost too real. I am also attracted to the sense of space Wyeth creates and the composition of figures and curves. Late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings have a beautiful sense of poetry in the lines of garments and the curves of the groupings of figures. Specifically, it is Duccio’s use of line to follow the edges of his curving robes, Giovanni Belinni’s compositions of curves as his figure’s robes and arms line up throughout the paintings, and Botticelli’s distortion of the human figure to create a more beautiful line that serve as clear inspiration for my work.
On the whole, the work that I am most attracted to and inspired by is filled with a sense of calm and beauty in line and form.