Artist Statement

I am very influenced by the forces, movements, spaces of nature–the way trees twist and turn, uplift their branches, send roots through the earth and arms through the air. I love the space of air and sky, and I see the earth itself as a transparent field as spacious as the air above, and as full of movement. Beyond our perception of objects in the material world, there exists a deeper level which is a field of potential energy constantly in flux, change, and movement. It is this field of energy and unexpressed movement that I am trying to capture in my work.

The shapes I create are representative of forms that grow, and of forces that cause growth. Dylan Thomas’ line, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” captures something of what I want to express. These entities of curled and elastic pods and seed shapes and embryos, sprouts and shoots, float in the space of the canvas surface. They are alive but not solid. These organic shapes are more like processes of nature than pictures of it. As entities, they are aware of the space they are in, its boundaries and its expansions, and of all the other forms which inhabit the space with them. The paintings are narrative in this respect and tell the story of the relationships of the forms as they move in implied time and space.

I see the paintings as a combination of the techniques of drawing with line and painting with areas of color. I hope to maintain an intriguing balance of solid, not solid, intentional and unintentional effects, keeping the art work open until the last final moment of its creation. Through this process, I try to enliven the work with a feeling of immediacy and freedom, and at the same time express the inevitability of the relationships of each part to the unified whole.