Artist Statement:

In my most current series of watercolor paintings I use, as a basis for my compositions, a combination of real still-life objects along with elements that I’ve photographed and manipulated in PhotoShop. In addition to these traditional still life objects, I incorporate sections of both current and former work by using completed, or sometimes partially completed, paintings as still-life elements in my compositions. My set-ups are generally not static in that after my initial drawing, I will move, add, and remove objects, such as mirrors, in order to complete the composition. The mirrors and paintings of paintings add to the visual complexity of the pieces; these elements also allow me to examine and illustrate, to a certain extent, the process and direction of my work.

In another related series of paintings, all acrylic and oil on canvas, I use landscapes as the basis for my imagery. These pieces are much more gestural and abstract in terms of execution when compared with the series of watercolor still-lifes. I these works, I take the lines, shapes, colors and sense of light that I see in my subject and selectively distort these elements, through exaggeration or simplification, in order to create a strong sense of movement. In some ways, although the subject matter and techniques are quite different, both series of paintings deal with elements of abstraction from different standpoints. Because I am very interested in both the visual and content-related similarities between these two series, I regularly switch back and forth between the landscapes and still-lifes in order to establish clear parallels between individual paintings.