Wednesday, December 14, 2011






















The fields lose their color, the trees form but gray or brown masses... the dark waters reflect the bland tones of the sky. We are losing sight of things - but one still feels that everything is there... (Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot)

Monday, December 12, 2011

Distilled Reconstructed Landscapes


It’s fair to say that my paintings contain layered meaning. Minimally, my paintings are a reaction to the Western culture of my time—my rejection of our society’s penchant for excess and indifference that threatens our planet’s ecosystems. I do not paint pictures of polluted rivers or littered fields. My work represents my own attempts in these chaotic times to reconnect and decipher the natural world, and to come to grips with the exigencies of today’s stark environmental situation. Violence and destruction also exist in nature, yet when I paint, I choose to ignore these traits. In nature’s predictable rhythmic patterns, I see the sublime. To me, nature represents the ultimate example of gracious acceptance of change, even death; winter’s repose inevitably yields to spring’s rebirth. For these reasons, my paintings   at least, are simplified, idealized attempts that speak to nature’s persistence, vulnerability and beauty, which I paint if for no other reason than this: within the natural world exists the promise of rejuvenation.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

“What there is to see in painting, or rather what I am looking for, is the form, the whole, the value of the tones…That is why for me the color comes after, because I love more than anything else the overall effect, the harmony of the tones, while color gives you a kind of shock that I don’t like. Perhaps it is the excess of this principal that makes people say I have leaden tones.”[42] Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, and Vincent Pomerède, Corot, Abrams, New York, 1996, p. 5, ISBN 0-87099-769-6 

Sunday, May 1, 2011

"We make artwork as something that we have to do, not knowing how it will
work out.  When it is finished we have to see if it is effective.  
Even if we obey inspiration we cannot expect all the work to be successful. 
An artist is a person who can recognize failure."   Agnes Martin