I paint from photos, life, and with an intuitive responsive process. I populate the compositions with things like bodies of water, microbes, or small shelters. Through layering and subtraction, I continually negotiate each element’s identity and relationship to nameable forms. Color describes light and heat, from the sun or small chemical processes. Texture and edge become topographical contour and bodily membranes that merge or contain.  By rearranging the panels or destroying the painted image, I reframe elements and make way for new forms. My choices are negotiations between opposing forces: abstraction and legibility, momentum and blockage, foreground and deep space. 

 

I started my newest paintings by arranging sections of wooden trim on panels. This created a pattern of barriers like a maze or a collection of membranes. I navigated these surfaces with paint and created areas of illusionistic depth for the eye to explore.