Artist Statement

I can be content to not do much in a day but look, feeling thoroughly occupied with seeing. What I especially look for are patterns that have the fractal-like means of reflecting what lies beyond my horizon. The dominant trait of the world I’m in, is that it seems to have neither will nor constraint, no impulse other than to reach out, continuously, for the edge of itself.

This piece , “Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, was influenced by the dancer Jamar Roberts’ video work “Cooped”, and painted in parts while listening to Childish Gambino’s “This is America”.

It considers conflict and power within and around the body.

My paintings are most often improvised - I first apply color to the canvas in broad spontaneous strokes, let shapes and shades fall where they may. Then I observe this first, lose level of expression and begin to outline with white paint the areas that seem particularly promising – finding sometimes recognizable shapes that I proceed to emphasize - and blanking out what seems inert. bBut of course the white space - the in-betweeness – takes a life or its own. I follow that carefully, shaping and refining emptiness as much as what is full. Meaning begins to arise in these positive and negative forms, and pleasure too, in adventurous pursuit of harmony. My work is to bring forth new beings or things, and new beauty in the space between them.