Artist Statement
My preoccupation with the cosmos grounds my artistic practice in discovery. It begins with the examination of light, its properties, and media, including resin, glass and gemstones. The result is what I call, “tonal paintings”, made of unorthodox materials, which produce different hues, values and energies. Through intensive research and observation, I derive these ocular and kinetic possibilities. My paintings are composed to expand the understanding of abstraction, life and the origins of the universe.
Reflection is a property of light, but it is also a method of examining one’s environment and self. Illusion is relative to reflection and reflecting light, while illusion is ostensibly linked to faith. Slick, reflective, resin surfaces act as both scientific and spiritual advisors. Shards of glass, meticulously pieced together like a puzzle, refract light. Each painting, composed of countless tiny prisms, slows and bends light as it travels from the density of air to glass. The gemstones populating my works are evidence that heat, pressure, hot fluids and gases once consolidated in the earth’s core. The visual opulence created by these elements are not only a testament to the ways in which color manifests, but the visible and invisible forces at work in our world and beyond.
Lessons from Monet’s Water Lilies and NASA’s James Webb telescope also commingle meaningfully in my latest work. Monet’s palette and keen observational aptitude make his Water Lilies, “paintings not only of the landscape of the pond, but the reflections within, including cloud and sky.” Cosmic topography and the widescreen vista of nature attest to the effects of celestial mechanics upon terrestrial events. Inversely, the James Webb telescope’s first image, released in July 2022, uses infrared radiation to study the birth and death of stars, the formation of planets and galaxies when they collide.
The fascination is a spiritual pursuit in nature and the magnitude of possibilities that can be found within the unknown.
