“The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery” ~Francis Bacon
It is not my intention to recreate nature, but only to imagine and interpret its permutations as it grows and dies and offers sighs of its magnitude. The kindness of the sun and the grace of the earth humble me, and I try to find alignment. A deep struggle is taking place that challenges our invisible connection to the world. I respond by the act of ”making” to help me wrestle the hunger to make the unknown visible.
I am drawn to and inspired by a variety of climate endangered environments that speak to me.For over a decade,I have been working with the themes of regeneration, renewal, and the hopeful attitude of redemption.Through my scuba diving and hiking activities, I experience firsthand the impact on threatened jewels…the Great Barrier reef and other reef ecosystems, the High Arctic, the Amazon, Cumberland Island, rainforests, and more. I view nature as a transformative power in its state of deconstruction and regeneration.Here lies the parallel as my own mortality transitions. Growth, decay, adaptation and renewal are timeless facets we experience in the nature and within ourselves.
I attempt to use a vocabulary combining both organic and graphic forms to symbolize my thoughts on the status and ongoing threats to these places of wonder. For me, a dominant challenge is to transform thoughts into transcendental metaphors that illuminate the tensions and connections between our internal and external landscape.My paintings are evidence of my personal search to comprehend universal themes I see in nature, and in my own life.
The genesis of the work comes from a recipe of fears, secrets, and magic. Poetry is in a patch of moss or dense foliage. Blooms, buds, seeds, stems, water droplets, and their microbial universe whisper their determination…but are not indifferent to the hovering forces threatening their survival. My attention wanders to these ecosystems, where I feel connected yet distanced.
A wasp is lost in my studio and flies aimlessly. An alert to the disorder we have caused. It allows me to designate and question meaning to my” being”, alongside all that is around me. I carry this into a primordial painters landscape that illuminates the hope for something gained as well as lost in the beautiful equation of existence.