Artist Statement
The peripheral is at the core of my practice. What we see but do not focus on; what we overlook or take for granted. The quiet subject matter of my work — empty streets, architecture meeting vegetation, power lines dividing the sky, dancing shadows on a wall — is revealed as a voyeuristic element of urban life. Each of my works begins with observation. I use photography to capture moments of detail and the resulting images are the starting points for future compositions. I then translate them into oil, acrylic, and gouache paints on canvas, wood, and paper.
I start with a bright base color, a painting technique from the renaissance, to set the overall tone and energy for the painting. Then I build layers of acrylic and oil paint, combining washes and textures to create a history within the piece. Personal memory and intuition dictate how much of the underpainting is revealed as the final composition takes shape. The finished paintings are not a literal representation of a specific place, building, or tree. Each is influenced by the source imagery, but is abstracted and edited as I work with it in the studio.
