Artist's Statement
I am involved in looking at things that include both visual and tactile sensations, through their reverberative connections. I paint things such as bread, ceramic vessels, and cloth, which have long social histories related to nutrition, invention, and culture. I work with this variety of items to construct paintings by piling them, stacking them, strewing them, and layering them into compositions which, I find, acquire a character. Although my paintings are certainly mimetic, I am not particularly interested in ‘realism’ as defined by an intention to convince my audience that my paintings are as real as my subject matter. Reality for me, is a heightened awareness of the moment while my feet are anchored to the ground. As an observational painter, I practice the activity of painting as a process of translation. This analogy of translation also connects my work to my search within traditions, by which I mean that I maintain an openess to traditional forms and spatial conceptions. The brush, in this search, is a crude yet expressive instrument that simplifies the complexities of form in order to impart presence to them. More often than not, I work in the panoramic format, with its implicit expectation of exploration and discovery. This format allows me to assert or hide the horizon, to represent objects frontality or through turning, and it gives the viewer an overview of the situation while allowing for an intimate examination of specific relationships. My sensations are filtered through my response to the present moment: a contemporary mindset where the organization of a painting reflects on our current state of irresolvable discomforts, as well as the optimism to go forward, alongside an awareness of the beauties of nature that exist apart from our social world.
