Artist Statement

As a postmodernist, I embrace multiple approaches to art-making. I do not feel limited in making one particular kind of painting but instead adopt and borrow formats that best suit the questions that my work asks. In the past, my work dealt primarily with personal experiences and memories related to landscapes and places. These ideas typically manifested themselves in color-field paintings based on a singular formal aspect of the place that was the subject of the work – a striking color, a unique pattern or curious light.

Recently, I have begun to realize that another major theme in my work is the desire to have control, an aesthetic order and ultimately, simplicity. While I can recognize these ideas in my earlier works, some of my newer works are based in more structured and methodical approaches in image-making. Using grids and patterns related to mandalas, one new series examines the idea of making work according to a set of pre-determined rules that I establish for each piece. While this might seem like a creative limitation, it allows me to focus on the idea of process as a form of meditative practice.

Another series that has developed simultaneously is concerned with the relationship that painting has to art history and its necessary debt of gratitude to the past. In these works, I have returned to using figuration to explore ideas related to magical realism. These works emerge as mysterious singular images borrowed from literature, art history and my past. Each work suggests a single point in a narrative but without explanation of what may have come before or what might follow. They remain vague, open to multiple meanings, interpretations and individual stories.

At the conclusion of a series of works, I am left with a visual record of the ideas and processes that helped mold the pieces. While each image has a very specific origin and meaning for me, it is not important that a viewer has the same response or notion about the work. Indeed, I do not believe that it is possible for two people to have exactly the same response to a non-objective work. Instead, the vague and ambiguous qualities in each piece invite viewers to realize unique personal conclusions regarding possible meanings or questions in the paintings.