Artist Statement
I usually start a piece because I see something in nature that calls to me in its shape, colors or texture. As I work, I often combine near and distant views, or let one space erupt into another, or let odd objects appear as though transported from who knows where. Sometimes the painting is combined with real three-dimensional objects – a holdover, I suppose, of my having started with sculpture. The fun of this work for me is in how these shifts let me think about dimensions beyond the small focus of my everyday life. It’s a bit like trying to see through all time and space at once. I want to suggest how the molecules of any object have been part of many other things in the past, and will be again, as matter transforms over the course of deep time. And I want to suggest how very disparate things are interconnected in unknowable ways.
Beyond that, this work is, for me, a kind of meditation on perception and representation. Painting something changes how you see it. It feels like an act of summoning, honoring and gratitude.
