Statement
My paintings focus on three areas of interest: abstracted aerial, landscape and deconstructed figurative. Though often separate in my work, the similarities of these three categories are clear.
Starting with a magnified view of a leaf, if the edges are cropped away, thereby taking away the biggest clue to its form, the leaf can look like a biology slide of capillaries and veins. Pull out from the leaf to show the branches of a tree and we see figurative, dancer-like shapes twisting and bending. Take a figure in silhouette, without the clues of facial expression, and the form becomes more generic, similar to the branches and the leaves. From far above, we can see the rivers and mountains creating these same shapes within their depth or mass - the Grand Canyon and the Niger Delta for example. As with the returning full moon and changing seasons, nature finds a pattern it likes and repeats itself.
Starting with a magnified view of a leaf, if the edges are cropped away, thereby taking away the biggest clue to its form, the leaf can look like a biology slide of capillaries and veins. Pull out from the leaf to show the branches of a tree and we see figurative, dancer-like shapes twisting and bending. Take a figure in silhouette, without the clues of facial expression, and the form becomes more generic, similar to the branches and the leaves. From far above, we can see the rivers and mountains creating these same shapes within their depth or mass - the Grand Canyon and the Niger Delta for example. As with the returning full moon and changing seasons, nature finds a pattern it likes and repeats itself.
In our everyday environments we can also find life-like scenes hidden within industrial or man-made objects. When resting, the Port of Oakland cranes, are like old companions watching the sun rise and set over San Francisco. Sweeping highway arches crossing dense patches of buildings resemble the visual mess of many legs moving along 5th Avenue in New York.
Depicting these natural and fabricated structures in visually-interesting and colorfully-compelling ways is the focus of my work.
